


Can You Hear the Stars Singing?

by Chromascuro_523



Series: Gazing Skyward [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Byleth actually gets a character arc, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Follows Verdant Wind (Golden Deer Route), Gen, Gratuitous comma usage, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Its gonna be a ride folks, Kinda?, Lovecraftian, Nabatean OC (sorta), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent-Child Relationship, Ship isn't the main focus, Slow Burn, Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), There's gonna be elements of other routes, Unconventional Perspective, Worldbuilding, crippling depression too, fight me, i hope you like fluff, its confusing, lowkey lovecraft vibes at least, no beta we die like Glenn, your welcome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22549387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromascuro_523/pseuds/Chromascuro_523
Summary: Byleth was not alone when she escaped from Solon's trap. She came out holding the Sword of the Creator in one hand and a child; a strange little girl in the other.This has more consequences than one would think.OR: The universe hands Byleth a kid. Hijinks ensue.Spoilers for Chapter 9 and onwards.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Series: Gazing Skyward [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1676986
Comments: 50
Kudos: 201





	1. The First Verse

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: 7/23/20 - Cleaned up Chapter 1, sorry not a new update, but I'm much happier with this

.

.

.

.

.

 _Darkness_.

It was all the little soul knew as it wandered.

Meandering as always through the nothing, as the emptiness was all it knew.

_That was strange_ , the soul thought to itself. It had the impression that this was not what it once began as. A formless thing, ambling through the dark nothingness of this vast empty plane. Like it once was _something_ . A thing that had a _reason_ to exist. Not a nothing that somehow existed regardless.

Maybe once upon a time, there were others like it. In a place that was not nothing, a large place just like the nothing, but where warmth rained down from the towering sky above, where every corner of reality sang out its grand harmony of being. The melody reverberated with pure joy as it's volume expanded to all beings, and the souls echoed back a reply as their voices joined together in harmony, though some didn’t stay in tune all that well.

Perhaps that was where the little soul belonged. Ever since it could recall, it had known these things. This place, this nothing, whatever it was, was _wrong_ , and that place, the one where it was not alone was _right_. It existed there once, with all the others. 

But then _something_ had happened. Something not good.

And somehow, the little soul had found itself here in the nothing.

As soon as it had arrived, things began to slip away. Darkness permeated it's very being. Memory was first-wiped clean. Its physical form was next-devoured. The darkness took and took until all that was left was the little soul alone.

The soul sensed it would not be long until it faded away as well. All this time, helpless to do anything, slowly being stripped away layer by layer. Eventually, the time would come where it would just _cease to be_ \- 

That notion made the soul feel a little more hollow inside. 

Despite everything, the little soul wanted to exist again. It wanted to go back. This place did not sing as beautifully, not as reality once had. It was silent. It was suffocating. It was maddening.

It missed existence. It missed the feeling of the warmth from above, the other souls like itself, but most of all it had missed the song.

But, the little soul knew it could never return. There was no way out of here. The only way that could be conceived of, would be to cleave apart the fabric of the nothing, open a gateway to one of the neighboring worlds.

_Impossible._

It couldn’t do anything. This place was everything, and before long, the darkness would digest it entirely as well. So it resigned itself to its fate, forever lost.

* * *

Monica was dead. Her heart ripped out of her chest by Tomas-Solon, her own ally.

Monica had been _her_ kill.

Byleth had been so close, so close to enacting justice on her father's murderer. So close to getting that sweet vengeance that she ever so craved. When they had taken care of her soldiers and demonic beasts and Kronya ran, she had rushed ahead of her Golden Deer in the pursuit, and at last, Monica had been between a rock and a hard place. There would be no escape for her.

After that fateful day, it had surprised her how much she wanted Monica dead. All her life, from the first moment she picked up her first sword, she was the Ashen Demon. Emotionless. The mercenary with no empathy no one wanted to be on the receiving end of a blade from. 

After Sothis had awakened the night of the bandit attack, something changed. All these things, joy, sorrow, envy, fear-

But then that woman had _murdered_ her father in cold blood, with a twisted smile on her face laughing all the while the wretched act was being performed. The assassin brought about the most potent emotion Byleth had ever felt until that point, _anger._

_"Thanks for all your help sir!~"_

Byleth still remembered the way that sickly-sweet, sing-song voice had sounded coming out of that witch's mouth. And then even as she had turned back time ( _over and over and over again…_ ) She could still not save him. 

_"You're just a pathetic old man."_

All it took was a second for Byleth's entire world to turn on its head into something completely unrecognizable. And in that instant _(eternity)_ , it was over, the horrid deed finished.

Jeralt, her father, lay dying in her arms, as the witch with the strange knife that left no visible wound and the man with the white eyes who had deflected the sword of the creator teleported away, far out of her reach.

In the weeks following Jeralt's death, her grief hardened into anger, and anger into hellbent fury. After that first time crying over her dying father, her tears seemed to dry up for good. It was that same anger that burned like a bonfire in her unbeating heart now.

Her students and the other professors had done all they could to help her. Hanneman and Manuela took over classes for her those first few days while she couldn't bring herself to leave her room. Sylvain tried to lighten the tense mood with his jokes, she had received a hug from Hilda, and the condolences she had gotten from almost everyone. She appreciated that, couldn’t they see? Kind words did little to help the situation. The killer still walked free.

Only one thing could satisfy the ache in her soul. Vengeance. Claude had seen that and wanted to help her exact justice. She appreciated that the most.

She had never _truly wanted_ a death before, not during all her time as a mercenary, and not in her short time as a professor. She would make Monica pay dearly for what she had done to her father.

And then Solon had to come and snatched that opportunity away from her.

She still had so much she needed to ask him, additional information that had not been recorded in the meager amount her father had actually written in his journal. She needed to know more. How much further through this ocean of lies would she have to wade before finally reaching the truth?

Suddenly she felt something grapple her, throwing her out of her thoughts.

The dark mist gathering at the sides of the dais that she had paid little attention to before grabbed hold of Byleth's arms, legs, anywhere the foul tentacles of miasma could wrap around. Struggling to get herself free, they refused to detach.

She heard shouting, and her attention was thrown outside of the dais as she saw the students of the Golden Deer house emerge from the forest. Her eyes widened in a panic. She had to warn them. She couldn’t let them get caught in this too.

_“Don’t you dare come any closer! Stay where you are!”_ Byleth shouted her orders at the oncoming students, praying to any deity that would listen that it would be let it be loud enough to cover the distance.

As if by a miracle, they heard her. The students stopped a distance from the frothing mist of darkness. Byleth could barely see their horrified faces from where she stood. She heard Hilda cry out to her in fear, "Professor!"

" _The time has finally come to unleash the forbidden spell of Zharas_ -"

Solon held Monica's heart aloft with one of his pale, aged arms and crushed it into a foul black gas that spiraled into the air like a cyclone.

"- _upon our enemies!_ "

Monica's now heartless body fell to the ground and stretched out her hand towards Byleth. " _Please…help me…_ " She begged in a pitiful voice.

And with that, the tides of darkness swelling up around the dais swarmed over both of them. A high pitched scream hit the ceiling, although she wasn't sure whose, and rang out through the air as black swallowed them and they knew the light no more.

* * *

_Sothis stepped down from her throne and approached Byleth._

_"Your will and mine are now as one. Both sides of time are revealed to you, and you alone. You know I am the beginning. What shall you do?”_

_And the air turned to gold._

* * *

_Light._

There was a light in the darkness.

The little soul struggled to comprehend what it was sensing. A soul. No, Two souls. One of the souls shone brighter than the other. It was a harsh, yet warm light. The other soul was dimmer, yet it was larger than the smaller, brighter soul. Its glow was also warm, yet it was more welcoming. Both souls appeared to be bound by some sort of tether, a connection between them crafted from the song.

It heard it.

The song.

_Oh, how it had missed the song!_ It had given up on ever experiencing it again. This song was small, quiet, but it was unmistakable.

The little soul wondered if the same bad thing that had happened to bring the souls here had happened to these souls as well. Though it noticed something odd. Though they were bound together, they only seemed to have one physical form between them. Shouldn’t the other have one as well? Two souls, two physical forms. It was basic numbers.

The little soul reflected on its current state. It didn’t have one, though if circumstances were normal it would. There were exceptions to every rule, right? This had to be one of them. 

As the little soul was deep in thought, the smaller, brighter soul came with great speed toward the dimmer soul, the tether between them guiding its path. It dissolved into particles of light, which were drawn into the larger soul by some strange force. The lights that were once the other soul took root deep within it, and they became one.

Oh, well that solved the problem.

All was still for a time until the dim soul exploded with light in a grand display, the songs both souls sang harmonizing as both voices converged and became one. As the new powerful voice made even the nothing resonate with its song, a grand light erupted into a magnificent crescendo more radiant and intense than either soul had been as an individual!

The little soul felt the song resonate across its entire being, note after note, measure after measure. Familiarity was found in the voice's music, tugging on the place left hollow by some long-forgotten memory.

Was this soul someone important?

* * *

_Come, little wanderer, for you have been found._

* * *

  
  


_( ~~Mother?)~~ _

Then the new soul that was once two, drew a long object that was anchored onto the side of its physical form. The object pulsed in time with the rhythm of the song radiating out of the newborn soul, adding beats of percussion to the soul's symphony and with a tremendous swing, cut through the fabric of the nothing separating it from reality.

_(Don’t leave me here in the dark again!)_

And from the other side of the new doorway, it could feel the song of existence bleeding through!

The little soul froze.

_Out._

_It was possible to leave._

_No more darkness, no more loneliness, no more purposelessness._

_No more nothing._

The little soul sprang after the new soul _(after its mother)_ and with all of its might grabbed hold. It felt the larger soul stop moving as the tempo of its song gained speed with its apprehension. The larger soul regained its composure and began to pry at its hold. The little soul refused to give. Not when freedom was so close. The brighter soul and it would leave together. 

The song of the brighter soul echoed across the hold as it struggled. The little soul felt its own song harmonize, and then much to its surprise, something deep within the little soul awakened.

_~~(Mother)~~ _ had what the little soul needed to exist again.

It wanted it. It wanted the brighter soul's light. More than anything else it had ever felt. The little soul then overcome by the primal desire, sank the hold deeper into the larger soul, and then- 

D

R

A

N

K

D

E

E

P

Light flooded into the little soul through the hold it had staked into the larger soul. It was beautiful. It was wonderful. The light-filled even the cavernous achings inside of it that it hadn’t realized were empty. The light combated the nothing, restoring what the little soul had once been stripped of. Nothing else would slip away. 

It had it now, the little soul realized what it needed to make a physical form. The power of a _God_. That was what it was called. It had the ability to make forms from its own. Could this ability be edited slightly? It needed to experiment.

Oh, it didn’t know how to make a body, did it? An idea struck just then. It would just use the physical form of the soul it had borrowed the light from as a template. Of course, it couldn’t be the exact same, or things would get confusing for the other souls back in existence differentiating them, so some liberties had to be taken for their sakes.

Its memories were gone, and they were not coming back, but that was alright, the little soul supposed. It could always just make new ones when it returned to existence. Besides, now with the power, it had borrowed from the other soul, concepts long forgotten flooded into its mind. _Body_ . That was the word for it. It needed a body. _Language_ . That was what souls- _people_ used to communicate with each other; it had forgotten. Well, it had what it needed now, might as well get to work.

_To exist again_. The little soul had been wandering through the nothing for so long it had forgotten what it felt like. Using the borrowed power, the little soul took the concept for a body it had also borrowed as a plan and c̸ ̶ r̶̤̄ e̵̮̘̳͜ ̸̝͓̫̫͊ ̷͕͒a̸͙͑ ̴͙͋̈́͑ͅt̶̙̹͇͗̊͂͝ e̶̢̢̯̭̍͂͑̕͝ ̸̲̹̫͍̦̽͝͠d̸̡̩̰̜̩͐̀͒̚ͅ.̴̣̯͔̇̇̏͛͑

A form like that of the brighter soul began to form around the little soul, tethering itself to it, and then setting it in place. The form started as an amorphous shape, then appendages split from the whole to form limbs and limbs spit to form fingers. A head came with them, buds split to form hands and feet, from the head sprouted hair. The little soul wondered what to change. The hair should be different than the other souls, as should its facial markings. What was the word for those again? It searched the knowledge it had borrowed. _Freckles._ Yes, that was it. That would probably be enough?

The form would be female, just as the other soul’s body was, albeit a much younger one. There was only so much the borrowed light could create, and an older form was a bit out of reach. The concept of gender was new to it, but it felt familiar to the little soul. The concept of female resonated most strongly with it. Perhaps before it had lost its original body it was a female?

The insides of the new body hardened to form bones to which muscles would attach. Then came the internal organs; stomach, kidneys, lungs, and too many others to name. The heart stone formed and hardened, entwining itself with the soul.

The lungs expanded, and with the new body's first breath, the little soul was welcomed into sleep. Her new body rested in the arms of the brighter soul. _( ~~Mother, thank you.)~~ _

* * *

_It is time to go home._

* * *

  
  


Byleth found herself holding a child. She stared down in bewilderment. Something had latched onto her in the darkness and had stolen some of Sothis-her power, siphoned it right out of her, and then using the stolen power, it had made itself _a body._

She looked down at the little girl in her arms. It was like she was looking into a mirror. That was _her_ face. The little girl looked almost exactly like a younger version of herself with a few minor differences.

Byleth turned her eyes to the tear she had made out of the void. It was already starting to slowly close. She had to leave now, and she was not leaving the child behind. She had already left them alone with Solon for too long. Her students needed her.

* * *

Claude and the rest of the Golden Deer watched in amazement as the sky was cleaved in two leaving a huge glowing gash floating above the stone dais. From the tear came the unmistakable shape of the Sword of the Creator, and where that legendary blade was, it's master was sure to follow.

The Professor leaped down from the sky, sword in hand, eyes, and hair glowing an ominous bright green with the reflection of the full moon above. Since when did Teach have green hair? It was dark blue when she had disappeared minutes ago, or as Ignatz had called it once upon a time, _"A lovely shade of teal"._

But there was something else too, a figure curled up against Teach's chest, being held there by the arm not being used to carry the famous relic weapon. A child, what looked to be a young girl by the length of her hair; probably no older than eight by her size, sporting hair of a similar green color as his professor herself, albeit a significantly darker tone. She also wasn’t wearing anything at all.

Tomas (Solon-he reminded himself) had said that Teach had been sent to a void of darkness somewhere, whatever that meant, and he was pretty sure he knew that children did not come out of big mystical tears in the sky, so that begged the question to be asked, who was the kid and how did Teach find her?

But questions could wait.

Byleth landed on the ground and stared at Solon with the most hate he had ever seen fill a person (let alone her) eyes. Her eyes were green as well now, the same bright green as her hair. Yet another question to add to the heaping pile of them. But like all the others, they could be answered at a later date, preferably when things calmed down.

"So the fell star consumes even the darkness itself," Solon stated, his eyes traveling up to meet Byleth's firm stare.

Teach did not reply. She only broke eye contact with him, shrugged off her cloak and wrapped it around the naked little girl in her arms, who was starting to visibly shiver in the cold night air. From the look of her, she was either sleeping or knocked out. Claude felt a pang of sympathy in his chest. Poor kid.

She migrated over to their location and placed the little shivering girl in the strong arms of Raphael. The rest of the students looked back up at her eyes filled with questions no one dared to speak until finally Lysithea, ever the bold one, was the one to gather her courage. "Professor, what happened out there? We were so worried when you vanished, but now you're back, and who is this child?"

"No questions now," Byleth warned, then looked back up to Raphael. "Keep her safe." 

The giant of a man responded with a firm nod. "Right Professor. You can count on me."

She then turned back to face Solon.

* * *

In the end, Solon was defeated, cut down by the Sword of the Creator, and Captain Jeralt was avenged. 

Byleth told Claude about the girl that called herself Sothis living in her head and was about to answer his questions regarding the little girl she had been holding when she had fainted, forcing Claude to half-drag-half-carry her back to the rest of the Golden Deer, which was not a fun experience in the slightest, his aching muscles would like to add.

Raphael and Hilda had volunteered to carry the professor back to the Monastery, so Claude was left to carry the little girl, much to his chagrin.

He hoisted the unconscious child into his arms as he traded people with Raphael, and immediately he was hit by how light the kid was in comparison to Teach, and for that, his arms were eternally grateful.

He kept a steady pace with the rest of the students as they left the Sealed Forest for Garreg Mach. As they traveled, he took note of their strange new guest. She had longish dark green hair, _a shade similar to Seteth_ , part of his mind noted was tangled and matted, her skin too pale and sickly, veins and visible underneath her skin. The poor thing was practically skin and bones. That explained why she was so light then. A flash of anger shot through him as he remembered his own childhood in Almyra. He had seen plenty of kids just like her in the streets of the poorer cities. 

Claude brushed her messy hair off of her face to get a better look at her. He tucked the loose strands behind her ear. They were weird too. They weren't like a normal human's ears at all. Pointed, angled on their tips and facing outward where they should be smooth and rounded.

Just as the trees of the Sealed Forest thinned into the Rocky hills surrounding the town of Garreg Mach proper, the too-thin girl in his grasp began to stir. Her eyes cracked open, she had to blink them a few times before they opened fully. They were the same shade of green as Teach's. Her eye shape was the same too, as was the shape of her face, albeit less mature. All in all, she looked like the new Byleth in miniature, with the exception of the darker hair.and the light freckles that dusted her cheeks, similar to Ashe of the Blue Lions if he remembered correctly.

Her eyes widened as she gazed around at her surroundings, the others, and finally to Claude himself. She reached up, hands shaking, and touched his face only to recoil at the feeling of his skin on her hand.

She stared at her hand with an expression of shock as she twisted it and turned it with morbid fascination as someone might at an injury before the full realization sank in. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. That struck Claude again as wrong. She angled her head to look down at herself, the poor kid jumped at the sight of her other arm, lifting it up to examine it the same way she had the first. She reached down to feel the rest of her body, her torso, her legs, and then finally her face. Her eyes filled with mist and tears congregated on the edges of her lashes, only for it to quickly become too much for her fragile body.

A hiccup, a sob, and then the arms of one Claude von Riegan were filled with a crying little girl.

"Claude! What did you do to that poor girl?!" Lorenz shouted at him, rushing over from his place in the front of the group. The rest of the deer had stopped walking to see what all the commotion was about.

"What-what's happening?" 

"I-I don't know! She just woke up and then started bawling!" Claude tried to defend himself, but for once in his life, his silver tongue that he had prided himself in was failing him. He was stuttering. He never stuttered.

"Well, obviously you must have done something you imbecile! Just look at her!" Lorenz shot back.

"I didn't do anything for once!"

Leonie sighed and walked up to the girl in Claude's arms ignoring the two of them while he and Lorenz continued to argue. "Hey, kiddo. What's the matter? Why are you crying?" She bent down to get a better look at the girl's face.

She was only met with sobs and high pitched whines.

Leonie motioned to Claude to hand her over "Give her here." To which Claude promptly answered with an "Alright." and relinquished the young girl to Leonie. From what he heard of her childhood growing up in a village, she had to have experience with kids right?

"Can you tell me why you're crying?" Leonie asked again, this time in a lower, more tender tone Claude didn't think Leonie was capable of making.

The little girl looked up at Leonie and then turned her gaze to the rest of the students. Tears were still trailing freely down her cheeks, but her eyes were open wide and a huge grin decorated her face. Her face contorted in confusion for a moment, trying to remember something. She opened her mouth and made a few sounds as if she were testing her vocal cords.

"It's...not...dark...here." She answered eventually, slowly and simply as the grin returned to her face. The rest of the Golden deer, particularly Lysithea, looked thoroughly confused at that. 

"What do you mean? It's the middle of the night." Leonie asked.

The little girl chuckled softly at the looks of confusion on their faces, the tears never once letting up. That was when he understood. She was crying tears of _joy._

"I have a body again...I exist again...I can hear the song again..Nothing else will slip away." She answered again. This time more confident with her voice, but there were still pauses between sentences as she figured out what to say.

Leonie and Claude shared a look. He knew it, Leonie knew it, heck, even Lorenz knew it. This kid had been through a lot, and wherever Teach had found her, she was obviously glad to not be there anymore.

"Well if that is that, I propose we make our way back to the Monastery post-haste. We may have Professor Manuela look over the professor and the girl as soon as we arrive." Lorenz proposed. There were no complaints.

Leonie insisted on taking the little girl for the rest of the journey, saying something about it being for her training. What a hectic day and that didn't even cover a third of it.

Jeralt's death, demonic beasts, Monica and Solon, and now Teach's transformation. No one in these last few months had really had it as hard as her had they?

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts he almost didn't hear the little girl's soft voice pipe up from Leonie's arms. 

"How is Mother? Is she okay?"

"Your mother?" Hilda asked from where she was next to Raphael. "Was she wherever you were when the professor found you?"

The little girl nodded. "She saved me...from the nothing."

Confusion blossomed on Hilda's face."Wait. Who are we talking about here? The professor or your mother?"

The little girl wrapped herself tighter in their professor's discarded cloak as she brought a hand out and pointed it right at the unconscious body Raphael was carrying. "Her. Mother."

Claude choked.

"Wait _whaaat_ ? The professor is your _mother_ ?" _My thoughts exactly, Hilda._

The pink-haired girl was gaping like a fish, as were a good deal of the others he would find if he bothered to look around. Not that he could at the moment, trying to free himself from a sudden coughing fit.

"But that doesn't make any sense," Raphael spoke up, apparently being the only voice of reason in the group. He looked over at the professor then glancing over at the little girl. "I might not be that good at math and stuff, but isn't the professor like around our age?"

"Woah, man. Who are we to judge our lovely professor here based on her choices?" Sylvain chose that moment to speak up, and boy was it a bad one.

Lysithea, now thoroughly out of shock, shot Sylvain a deadpan stare. "Really Sylvain? Is it really an appropriate time for such childish comments? But, that aside," She eyes the giant of a man himself, "Raphael does bring to light a good point. This girl can't be any older than eight, ten at the most. Their ages don't match up. If what she says is true, then the professor would have to have borne her exceedingly young."

A look of shocked realization crossed Leonie's face just then. "But the professor doesn't actually know her age, does she? Captain Jeralt didn’t even know." And with that can of worms open, the Golden Deer erupted into a cacophony of voices, everyone talking over everyone else.

"That's simply preposterous! The professor is obviously too close in age to all of us to even consider that to be a possibility!" Lorenz shouted, heat gathering on his face.

"Lorenz, but what if that isn't true? What if the professor is actually _waaay_ older than us and we just don't know it? Maybe she just ages well!" Hilda shot back.

"Has anyone considered that she might be adopted?" Marianne said quietly to herself, unwilling to join the argument. No one seemed to hear her but Claude.

"This kid looks too much like the Professor to be anything but her daughter." Sylvain piped up again.

"That right there is a logical fallacy. Just because she looks like the professor doesn't mean they're parent and child,” Lysithea was quick to not let Sylvain's reasoning off the ground.

"But-"

"What if-" 

"You guys are noisy. You should be quiet. You might wake Mother. She's tired. Let her sleep." The little girl in question stated matter of factly, effectively silencing everyone. Claude stifled a laugh. Teach could silence a whole chattering classroom with just her thousand-yard stare. Maybe these two really were family.

"Miss," The little girl tugged on Leonie's shirt to get her attention. "Can you give me to Star? If Mother can't carry me, I want him to."

"Uh, who are you talking about?" Leonie raised an eyebrow.

"Him," She pointed directly at Claude. "The one with the star in his blood."

"Oh, okay?" She handed the girl to Claude, whose arms were already protesting at the additional weight she added, small as it was. Really, again?

"But why me? Claude asked no one in particular, but the girl in his arms answered regardless.

"Because," she yawned "You feel nice...like a friend..." Her eyes fluttered closed and her breathing evened. She had fallen asleep.

Claude looked bewildered as Hilda and Sylvain laughed.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Annotation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: 8/21/2020 - Made it flow a bit better.

  
  


As the dying Guardian Moon shone brightly in the night sky above them with it's last few hours of life before the rising of the Pegasus moon, after many _absolutely_ _agonizing_ hours of waiting, her class had finally returned to the Monastery.

Flayn was ecstatic. She wanted to hear everything about the mission! She had seen them come up from the marketplace and enter through the main gate through one of the tower windows. Before she could control them, her feet were racing, carrying her towards where she knew Seteth was in the library.

"Fa-Brother! Brother, come quickly! Professor Byleth and my classmates have returned! Let us go promptly to greet them!" Flayn exclaimed as she charged through the doorway of the library, shoving both of the massive doors inward, wasting no time, she ran toward the figure of her brother reorganizing some of the shelves as he made preparations for adding new books. 

Everything had to be reorganized well now that Tomas, now revealed to be the imposter Solon, was gone, and Garreg Mach now lacked a librarian. As far as she knew there was no one else Seteth trusted to do the task correctly, so as always he had taken up responsibility for that as well in addition to his other duties. She was beginning to worry at all the work he was taking on. All his duties to the church as well as who knows how many other things? How did he ever find the time to do anything but work?

But now was not the time for such tangential thoughts! There would be time to talk to her brother about such things later, but for now, they had a duty to greet her classmates!

"Do quiet down Flayn. Need I remind you that we are in a _library?"_ Her brother looked down at her from the books he was shelving with a small smile on his face.

"But Brother, did you not hear me before? We must make our way to the Professor and her students! They have just arrived and I deeply desire to know what transpired in the mission that _you_ forbade me from going on!"

"You know I was only thinking of your safety Flayn. I was of the opinion that the mission your classmates _persuaded_ the Archbishop to allow them to go on had too many potential risk factors. What would have happened had the professor or your classmates not been able to protect you and you were captured again?" The smile faded from Seteth's face, his expression now looking like some bizarre cross of stern and concern, an expression he only wore when they were having conversations such as this one.

“But Brother, I can defend myself! I’ve made much progress under the professor’s instruction.” Flayn argued.

Seteth was having none of it. “I won’t debate this matter any further with you Flayn. Your safety comes first and foremost. Had you been captured again and used in more of their heinous experiments, we would potentially have another incident like that of Remire Village on our hands, except on a larger scale. It is for the good of everyone that you stayed behind.” The look on his face hardened into one that said Seteth couldn't be swayed.

Flayn knew she had to wrap up this conversation quickly lest her brother take up too much time on matters of the past and prevent them from doing what she desired to do in the present moment, so she dropped the issue and went straight for the heart of the matter.

"Brother, I understand, but I know you must desire to know what has happened as well, as to what fate Solon and his allies met in the Sealed Forest, as well as to the state of the students in the Golden Deer house." 

"Yes, I suppose you’re right." Seteth put the last few books in his arms into their correct spots on the shelf but stopped to stare at one with a displeased look on his face before taking out the offending book and switching it with the one directly to left. He stepped away and admired his work for a moment before turning back to her. "Now that I’m finished, let us depart."

Flayn grabbed his arm and tried to hurry him along, her own pace quickening as she ran towards the library doors, still open wide and at odd angles from where she had thrown them aside with her rather…explosive entrance.

She huffed and stopped at the doors, waiting for her brother to catch up. Unlike her, he didn't seem nearly as enthusiastic, refusing to walk faster than a stroll.

  
  


Fortunately, Flayn was quick enough that was able to catch her classmates just as they came into the Entrance Hall, Seteth lagging behind by a significant margin.

"Friends! You have returned!" She exclaimed as she ran up to the group of them.

Sylvain was the first to open his mouth."Well hello to you too, little lady-" Only to cut himself off when Seteth entered the hall a moment later, deliberately stepping away from Flayn to what was probably a safe distance, his sly smile falling and a look flashed across his eyes. Was that...fear? 

She didn't focus too long on that before her excitement returned. "You must tell me right away what has happened! I have been beside myself with worry!”

She turned towards Claude expecting him to be able to answer. She trailed off as she laid her eyes on what-or in this case _who-_ he was holding.

In his arms, he held a thin-looking child, a little girl with green hair about the same shade as her brother's wrapped tightly in the professor's cloak, still shivering slightly with the lingering chill from the winter night outside.

"Oh my! Who is this?"

From the moment she first laid her eyes on the child, she felt something. Some strange connection. This child reminded her of something she couldn't quite place. It was like a bell ringing in the back of her mind, but she couldn't pinpoint the source of the sound. But, she was sure of one thing, whatever connection she had with this child, it ran deep.

Claude handed the girl to Leonie as he stretched his arms, wincing at a probable sore muscle. All of her classmates looked so tired and worn out from what must have been a difficult mission. Thankfully, none of them looked injured.

Claude raised an arm and scratched the back of his head. "Well, that's the weird thing. We don't really know-"

"What our house leader means to say is, it's quite a long story, one that could be better relayed in the morning when we are all sufficiently refreshed," Lorenz stepped in before Claude could speak more.

"Wow, Lorenz. That was exactly what I was going to say." Claude raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, you two hush. You should have seen it Flayn! It was so amazing when the professor jumped out of that big rip in the sky!" Hilda gushed eagerly.

“A tear in the sky? Whatever could have caused that?”

Hilda was about to respond, most likely spilling the whole story, when Raphael spoke up. “Talking is nice and all, but the professor needs to get to the infirmary.”

Flayn gasped as her attention was turned to the unconscious form of the woman. The professor had changed! Her hair color was now green, similar to her and her brothers. The professor and that girl, they were connected somehow.

* * *

To Seteth, who was observing the entire conversation, nothing made sense.

The moment he had come through the door, he had frozen at the sight of the two unconscious females. 

It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. 

Yet somehow it was. 

The hair was the first telling trait. Upon further observation, The older of the duo’s ears remained the same as a human, while the younger had the telling pointedness humans lacked. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell their eye color while they were unconscious.

He knew he shouldn’t get ahead of himself, but something inside him dared to hope.

Was it possible that there were more survivors than Seiros? Perhaps an enclave of the Goddess’s children existed somewhere else, separate from Zanado and so well hidden despite all he and the other saint’s endless searching across Fodlan during and after the war against Nemesis that they remained unfound?

Were they truly not the last remnants of Nabatea? Were others like them still out there somewhere, in hiding, just waiting to be found?

Would Flayn be able to meet others of their kind?

This would require research.

* * *

~

_~_

~~_("In time's flow, see the glow, of flames ever-burning bright...")_ ~~

~

_~_

* * *

If you have ever woken up someplace new, not just in a place or position you don’t remember falling asleep in, but if the act of waking up in itself was foreign to you, then you might empathize with how the nameless girl felt when her eyes shot open the next morning.

All at once, brightness assaulted her retinas and her entire body tensed. _Where… Where am I?_ This place...it wasn’t dark. It was the exact opposite. She thought back to how she could have ended up in this situation, and the memories of the previous night came flooding back.

_It worked._

_I’m free._

Happiness flooded through her systems. By all rights, what were the chances of that happening? She resigned herself to her fate of fading away, only for exactly what she needed to come out of nowhere. 

She sighed. Now, to figure out where she was. 

The nameless girl felt something soft beneath her and something else warm, shrouding her body. _A bed and a blanket_ , she remembered from the knowledge she had borrowed. It was strange because that shouldn’t have happened. She had honestly thought that the knowledge would go back to her after she was done creating her body, but she still had it. 

She was grateful for it though, even though it seemed to be limited to concepts and not to memories. If she had returned to reality with no knowledge of how the world worked, then things would be very difficult. She would be like a newborn soul- _baby_ , having to figure out everything about the world and her body from scratch would take _way_ too much time for her liking.

The girl supposed it was okay if she kept it. After all, she had only borrowed a copy of it, that way Mother wouldn’t have to relearn things and she got free exposition about existing. It was beneficial for both of them. A _win-win_ as the saying went.

What struck her first about the bed was how comfortable it was. The mattress beneath her was comfortably pressed close to her body as her new weight sank into it with the pull of gravity.

Gravity. That took some getting used to, the sensation of having some force pulling on her, keeping her grounded in more ways than one. When she had just been a soul wandering through the nothing, there had been no such thing. Now it was omnipresent, always here, permeating everything and hugging it close to the earth.

Then she noticed the light bleeding into the room from the section of the wall that was cut out. _The window_ as it was called. Light. _Light. Light!_ Oh, how she had missed this. This was the warmth that had rained down from above! One of the few things she actually remembered! The warmth that made her soul resonate with joy. She wanted it. She wanted its warmth. 

She tried to move her new body like the other souls from the night before moved theirs. Signals were sent to the corresponding body parts through her nerve cells, muscles clenched, and released. She had to move her muscles in a specific order to achieve that refined movement the other souls had over their bodies. 

She raised a hand above her body. It was one of the sequences she had figured out the night before due to the abundance of sensory cells located in her hands. The night before she had observed the way the others communicated. Along with the verbal component to speech, they moved their hands quite a bit too. She supposed they were another important aspect of communication.

She turned her head to the side and stared at the ground. She was going to have to stand, wasn’t she?

She’d have to learn how to move her legs eventually, right? How hard could standing be?

One after the other, in sequence, her muscles clenched and she moved her leg, inch by inch towards the edge of the bed.

She remembered how she had seen the others from the night before moving; it had a lot to do with the torso just above where the legs were anchored. She moved the muscles around there, feeling her spine flex and twitch upward before falling back to the bed. That was how the muscles there moved, a longer contraction should do it. 

She pulled and heaved her upper body to a position where it was standing perpendicular to the surface of the bed. Sitting up, she discovered she could get a better view of the room. The walls were brown wood in most places, but white in others. The floor was also made of wood the same color as the walls. The window on the wall adjacent to her bed was framed by long white cloths. _Curtains_. They looked pretty.

Light. She needed to get to the light. She heaved her lower body to attempt to move her legs, which was easier than she had been expecting and inched her way to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Now, she just needed to lift herself off the bed and-

**_CRASH_ **

As it turns out, standing was pretty hard.

The girl rubbed the side of her head in an attempt to get rid of the pain. Why was her body so sensitive? Maybe it had to do with her lack of fat and muscle mass? The others from the night before were meatier than her, even the boy with the clear round things on his face. _Glasses,_ they were called _._

_Maybe I should have put more meat on my bones._ She thought bitterly. Sure, there was only so much the godly power she had borrowed from Mother could create, which was why she didn’t make herself an older form, but she probably could have managed that at least.

She heard the creak of the- _door,_ that was the word- opening and footsteps as someone new entered the room. This new person’s song was _really loud._ It was almost uncomfortable to listen to. No one’s song she experienced ever since returning to reality sounded quite so _obnoxious._ Like a voice echoing across a canyon, but the pitch was fluctuating much too quickly.

A woman’s voice came from the figure standing in the doorway. “Good morning-wait where did she go? She was just here when I left a few minutes ago…” 

Her new body chose that moment to betray her. Some saliva had gotten caught in her windpipe and she coughed. Loudly.

The woman walked over to her. "There you are. What are you doing on the floor? You should be in bed resting." The woman, an older woman with light brown hair and dark green dress bent down to meet her.

"I don't suppose you can stand with those weak legs, can you?" The woman raised an eyebrow.

She sat up again and tried to turn onto her side and use her arms to help her stand, but ended up collapsing back to the floor as her legs gave under her meager weight.

"I'll take that as a no. I'm going to have to put you back in bed myself then."

The girl decided then that she didn't like this woman very much.

The woman picked her up and placed her back on the bed."Now stay here and get some rest. You're still weak. You can't even stand, so I suggest cooperating."

The girl laid on the bed and stared at the window desperately for the light. She wanted the light. She reached her hand towards the window, grasping at the air in front of her.

"Now that you're awake, I need to ask a question. What’s your name? You looked dreadful when the students brought you in last night, and I don’t think I’ve seen you around the Monastery." The woman dragged one of the chairs at the other end of the room to the edge of the bed and sat down on it.

This woman wanted to know who she was? She didn't even know the answer to that question. If she had a name it was forgotten along with everything else.

"I…I don't know," she answered truthfully.

"Ah, so you can talk. You don't know? As in you don't remember, or you just don’t have one?" The woman leaned closer on her chair, the back legs of it rising off the floor as her center of mass shifted.

"I can't remember..."

"Hmm, amnesia? Great. Anyway, since you don't know, my name is Manuela. I'm the physician here at Garreg Mach Monastery. Is there anything you do know?" The woman-Manuela corrected herself- raised an eyebrow.

"I know I was lost for a long time, and then Mother came and saved me," The girl replied.

"Your mother? Why isn’t she with you? Do you know who she is?”

"My mother is the person with the bright warm light. She had two souls once before she saved me. Her song is soft and gentle, but it is powerful. Not like anyone else’s,” The girl explained.

She raised an eyebrow at that. “What are you talking about? Her song?” Manuela’s own tones gained more discord at her confusion.

What? She didn’t know? Could this Manuela woman not hear the song? But she lived here! She existed! She had a body! Hearing the song was what made the nameless girl want to return here so badly. It filled her with joy, experiencing it again. Not being able to hear it was awful. 

Perhaps Manuela was just kidding. She’d go along with it, at least for now. 

Would it be better to question Manuela using what Mother looked like instead of describing her song to her, then? She had to be kidding. There wasn’t any way that she couldn’t hear the song. 

Right?

“...She has hair like mine except it's lighter, and she doesn't have freckles. She let me use her cloak when she saved me. I was probably wearing it when I was brought here," She clarified, pulling on the white nightgown she was wearing.

Manuela blinked, a connection being made in her mind.

"Wait, wait, wait. Are you talking about Professor Byleth? _Nooo_ ...no, it couldn't be. She's _far_ too young to be having children, let alone a child of your age at that. She's at most in her early twenties, and you're, what eight?” Manuela began to mumble. “But no one knows for sure, do they? She had a child and never told anyone! What must she be doing to keep herself looking so young...I'd kill for youthful beauty like that…'' 

_groooowwwllll..._

She felt something inside her torso turn. What was this sensation? It was like the nothing, only inside of her! Was she dying? She couldn't die! She just barely got this body! What would even happen to her if she died now? Would she be banished back to the nothing? 

Tears gathered in her eyes as she held her aching abdomen. She hiccupped and wiped her eyes with the edge of her sleeve to stifle them.

Manuela was startled from her rambling by the sounds of the crying girl."Oh no, why are you crying?" She sounded exasperated.

The loud growling noise emanated from the pit of the girl's stomach again. “What is that awful sound?” 

"Oh, you're just hungry," She said that like it wasn't a thing to be terrified of! 

_Was it?_

"It _is_ about time for breakfast. I'll bring you something from the dining hall. A broth maybe. You're far too thin to have much else at the moment. We can move you on to solid food later."

The nameless girl snorted and wiped away the snot gathering beneath her nose. Would it really get rid of the bad feeling?

Manuela stood up from her chair and went back to the door, opening it and stepping out. "You'd better stay in bed this time, _got it?"_ She glared back into the room.

The girl gulped. Suddenly she felt compelled to stay _exactly_ where she was.

* * *

Byleth awoke late in the morning, the sun high in the sky. She had been having some strange dream about laying in Rhea’s lap while she was singing a soothing song. She didn’t usually have dreams unless they were ones about Sothis. 

Her eyes slowly craned open as she tried to remember. From the fog of her tired mind came the memories, one by one. The battle in the Sealed Forest, Kronya dying at the hands of Solon, the darkness welling around the edges of the dais, then...she had merged with Sothis to escape. After that, there was the battle with Solon, and she was talking with Claude…

She passed out, didn't she?

Looking around, she found herself in her quarters in the dorms. That meant she had been taken back to the Monastery after she had passed out, and _that meant_ she had to be carried back. How humiliating. 

She expected Sothis to say something, but then she remembered. Sothis was gone. They were one now.

Her heart was filled with sorrow at that. First, she had lost her father, and then she had lost Sothis? She would be lying if she said she wasn’t fond of the sassy amnesiac girl that lived in her head at least a little. 

If Byleth hadn’t been blinded by rage at the time, chasing after Kronya, she wouldn’t have been caught in that trap, and Sothis would still be here. What would Sothis say to her at a time like this? Maybe something like ‘ _You slept in you fool! You must get to your feet immediately! There is work to be done!’_

But, if she had never fallen for Solon’s trap then she would have never found that little girl in the void where the spell had banished her.

The child.

Byleth’s eyes snapped fully open as a sudden fire surged through her veins. She quickly sat up on her bed, her blankets falling. Goddess, she had forgotten about the child! The child who was probably who knows where by now! How could she forget about her?!

Byleth was on her feet before another thought could pass through her mind. She remembered giving the small girl to Raphael before the ending of the battle with Solon. She had promised to answer all their questions after the fight, and her students had accepted and they sprang into the second and final act of the battle. That meant the Golden Deer had brought the girl home with them last night along with her.

She had to be somewhere in the Monastery then. She sprung to her feet, hurriedly threw on her day clothes, and was out of the door before she could think twice.

After rushing out of her room and questioning any random passerby she happened to run into along the way, the next person she went to was Claude. He would know.

Thankfully, it was Sunday and the day after a mission at that. There was no class and everyone would be resting.

From his past comings and goings, he was likely either in his room brewing up a new poison, scheming up something, or in the library researching. Considering all the strange happenings of the night before, the library was where he was most likely to be.

After checking his dorm first just in case and finding it empty, she hurried to the library on the second floor. Byleth pushed open one of the doors and quietly peered inside. Sure enough, there the yellow-clad house leader standing in front of a bookshelf fingering through a dusty looking book with a red leather cover and a pile of other books on the floor at his side, engrossed by what he was reading.

She stepped lightly and made her way toward him in relative silence that had been trained from the time she was small. Stealth was an important skill to a mercenary after all. She tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped, unintentionally making him throw the book he was reading as he whirled around to see her, landing with a thump on the floor a little ways away.

“Aggh! Geez, Teach why’d you have to startle me like that?” Claude’s eyes were wide and panicked, then they settled down as he realized who was in front of him.

“You make it too fun,” Byleth replied without missing a beat, a small smile on her face.

“Why do you mock me so? I’m afraid my tender heart can’t take it.” He pressed a hand to his chest and he wore a fake face of distress.

Byleth rolled her eyes. Claude’s eyes widened and an inquisitive expression crossed onto his face. Unlike earlier, she could tell this emotion was genuine. “Wait, did you just roll your eyes at me? Is this the first time you've done that?”

“Probably.”

Claude smiled. “Well Teach, getting more and more expressive, are you?”

“I would be lying if I said no,” she answered.

He bent down and picked up the book he had thrown from the place where it had landed on the floor next to a table not far away. “I see you’ve recovered from your little fainting spell last night. I thought you’d be out all day at least. You’re a pretty deep sleeper.”

Byleth nodded, and Claude got up again and folded his arms behind his head. “By the way Teach, you were in the middle of answering my questions regarding what exactly happened to you last night when you conked out, so whaddya say we resume that?”

“I have to find the girl. Where did you take her after we arrived back here last night?” Byleth was quick to shoot down his request with one of her own.

“I took her to the infirmary as soon as we got back. Wouldn't that be the first place you’d think to look?” When Byleth turned away, he promptly reached out his hand and stopped her. “Wait, you were the one who brought her out of that darkness, but you don’t know her name?”

Byleth ignored him and walked out of the room, not caring that he followed her.

* * *

The mint haired woman cracked the door to the infirmary open, Claude and Manuela following her as she entered. They had run into the Physician in the hallway carrying a bowl of savory smelling broth from the dining hall.

The girl saw them enter just after she heard their songs. She sat up on her bed and tried to lean as far towards them as she could without falling over again. “Mother! You’re here!”

Byleth stopped, thrown off guard before she regained her composure. “You must be mistaken. I don’t have any children.”

The little girl noticeably deflated. Manuela walked over and forcefully handed her the bowl of broth. “You can ask questions later. Now, make sure she finishes that, I have business elsewhere.” The older woman left the room. The child stared at the bowl for a few beats, wondering what she was supposed to do with it. A realization bloomed on her face as she brought to her mouth and drank its contents quickly.

Byleth eyed the little girl in the bed with curiosity as she finished the bowl of broth. She turned to look at Claude who met her gaze wearing a similar expression. This girl was an odd one, not knowing what to do with food. Of course, that was understandable once considering how the child came to be here. She reminded Byleth of herself just a bit, an outsider not knowing how the world around her worked. She knew that feeling well.

She turned her eyes back to the child. She had called her Mother. _Mother_. She didn’t know how to be a parent. The only example she had was her father, and he was not only gone but he was hardly the best example of one. 

“Mother?”

The sound of the girl’s voice pulled her from her stupor.

“Mother, your song sounds confused. Are you okay?” The girl looked up at her with those huge eyes in the same _~~(stolen)~~ _ shape as her own.

“I’m fine, and I’m not your mother,” Byleth asked.

The girl put the empty bowl on the end table by the bed. “It's the truth. Why don’t you believe me?”

“Because it's not. I didn’t give birth to you, nor did I adopt you. You’re not my child.” Byleth’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re my mother because it feels right!” the girl growled, though her expression showed she was surprised at her anger.

Byleth inwardly cringed. She didn’t mean to make her angry. Though, looking back on what happened, she could reason why the girl thought she was her parent. That _thing_ she used to be in the dark world, it...it took her body and made a copy, so in some sort of strange, twisted way they _were_ family.

The girl sighed. “You can’t hear it either, can you?”

“Hear what?”

The frustration from before leaked back into her voice. “The song. If you could hear it, then you would _know_ that I’m telling the truth.”

“Didn’t you say something about a song the night we brought you back?” Claude finally asked after a beat of silence.

“Yes, the song. Can’t you hear the song of existence? Any of you?” Her expression fell by the second.

“I don’t think we can, sorry kid,” Claude responded.

The girl fell silent. Claude took that as his opportunity to pounce. “...So Teach, I know that yesterday you came out of that tear in the sky with her, so my question is, and please be honest with me, where did she come from?”

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we go, chapter 2. Not exactly 100% on board with how this chapter turned out, but I think its okay. This was originally a going to be whole lot longer, but I split it into this and chapter 3 because it was just getting so long. I looked at my word count and I already surpassed the length of chapter 1, so I thought I could make more time-effective chapters by splitting. 
> 
> Thanks, everyone for being so patient and kind to me. Seriously? 65 kudos and over 500 hits on the first chapter alone? That's a new record for me. Anyway, I just want to thank you all for being so nice and actually clicking on this. It means so much that people actually like what I write. A special thank you to everyone that commented last time. Going back and reading those gave me the motivation to write this.
> 
> See ya! Thanks for reading to the end of this note!


	3. Requiem

  
  


“...So Teach, I know that yesterday you came out of that tear in the sky with her, so my question is- and please be honest with me- where did she come from?”

Byleth was caught a bit off guard by Claude’s sudden question. Manuela had left the room shortly after the girl was finished with the broth to give them some privacy. She supposed that he wouldn’t stop asking until he got her side of the story.

The professor sighed. “What did I manage to tell you before I fainted? I’m sorry, but I don’t quite recall.”

The house leader tilted his head as he thought. “You got to the part about merging with the weird goddess in your head?”

“Yes, I believe it was. Your memory is impeccable.” Byleth gave a small smile before it fell into a more somber expression.

“Aww Teach, you flatter me.” He raised one of his arms and scratched the back of his neck.

Byleth ignored that comment. “After Sothis gave me her power, I used the Sword of the Creator to escape, but before I could leave, something grabbed hold of me. Something I couldn’t see. It...it stole a portion of the goddess’s power.” She looked down at her feet and narrowed her eyes remembering what it felt like, the ethereal tentacles of the unseen thing digging into her very being and feeling the bright surging power that had been gifted to her siphoned away by the invisible being that had attached itself to her, like fresh water to the drought-ridden ground.

Silence hung in the air for the span of a heartbeat.

The girl’s voice reluctantly perked up from the bed a short ways away. “...it was supposed to go back to you.”

Her attention shot to the child. Her head hung almost sadly. “What was supposed to go back?”

The girl’s eyes moved to meet hers. “The power I took from you. I didn’t want to keep it.”

Claude’s eyes widened. His head turned from Byleth to the girl, and then back, struggling to read what was happening. “Wait, you’re saying that the thing that stole Teach’s power while she was in that darkness, that was you?”

The girl nodded, her head still hung low. “I meant to just borrow it. All I needed it for was to make myself a body.”

“Why did you need a body? Why do you claim me to be your mother? ” Byleth’s eyes narrowed.

The girl shrank under the weight of her stare, her eyes widening in fear as she tried to edge her way closer to the headboard of the bed. She looked up at met Byleth and the expression on her face struck an unpleasant chord within her. She was afraid, and that fear was directed at her. It wasn’t like glaring at an opponent on the battlefield. This was a child, not an enemy. She taught children every day. In her haste to get answers, she must have forgotten that.

She stretched out her hand and put it on the girl’s shoulder as a clumsy gesture of comfort, the girl flinching under her sudden touch. Goddess, she was bad at this. The girl had called her Mother. 

What did that mean? She didn’t even have a mother growing up, so how was she supposed to be one now? A mother was a caretaker, a mentor, someone a child could rely on to keep them safe, healthy, and happy.

Without a solid knowledge of how to proceed, she defaulted. Byleth grabbed the child in both of her arms and hugged her close to her chest, just as her father had done for her after a nightmare when she was young. The girl froze stock still in her embrace. Byleth raised a hand and ran it through her hair, just as her father would often do. It was one of the few ways the gruff man showed affection and vulnerability.

“Can you answer my questions please?” Byleth softly intoned. She hoped it would have a similar calming effect on the girl as it had on her younger self.

Fortunately, it appeared to work. The girl relaxed and leaned into her, leaning her head on her chest and closing her eyes. The girl inhaled sharply, and then breathed out softly. Byleth felt something wet begin to trail down the girl's face and soak into her clothes. 

Her breath hitched and brought the edge of her sleeve up to wipe away the remaining moisture. The child turned and hugged her back with all the might her little arms could muster, her face against Byleth's bosom. "Okay...I'll try." Her voice came out muffled and thick with emotions.

“Once a long time ago...I lived here, in existence.” The girl began, leaning her head to the side as she thought back to her past. ”I lived in a big bright place, where warm light rained down from the sky. There were other people there, I think...I-I think you were there too, Mother.”

Byleth narrowed her eyes in confusion. What? That didn’t make any sense. She had never even seen this girl before yesterday. Unless...

Claude opened his mouth to voice his questions before she could. ”What do you mean you think? You aren’t sure?”

The girl nodded grimly. “I can’t be sure. I can’t remember anything concrete.”

Claude shook his head and sighed. “Amnesia. How inconvenient for us. Makes getting answers a lot harder. How do you know all of that if you can’t remember anything anyway?”

The girl’s eyes turned downcast. “The Nothing...the longer you remain within it, the more of you it eats away at. It eats and eats until there is nothing left, slowly... my memory was one of the first things to go, then my body. It leaves you with feelings, though. Echoes of things it stole from you. I remember the feeling of the light, it was warm. I remember not feeling lonely, so there were others there.” 

She hugged her knees as she continued. “I don’t know how I ended up there, but I do know that something bad happened. I like to think that maybe it was because of the others, maybe I went willingly to help them.” The girl chuckled dryly. “I was there for a long time, you know. I hoped that maybe one day I would get out, but without the power of divine on your side, you’re as good as dead...it was luck that I found you.”

After the girl finished speaking, silence fell over the room as the duo of professor and student digested what they had heard. 

She looked over at Claude, carefully observing his reaction. His expression seemed blank, unreadable, giving nothing away of his inner workings. She longed to know what was going through his mind. He was always prepared, he always knew what to do.

Personally, she didn't know what to think. Being alone for so long...she couldn't imagine it.

The nameless girl in front of them shifted in the uncomfortable quiet. She was looking at both of them like she was expecting them to say something. Neither of them did.

“Mother?” Came her soft voice, knocking Byleth out of her momentary stupor. “I’m glad you and Star are here.” 

“Why do you call me that?” Claude asked curiously.

“Because. You have the Star in your blood. I told you.”

Before anyone could press the matter further, the door to the infirmary swung open and a knight walked in, quickly saluting her before putting his hand back to his side. “Professor, good morning to you.”

Byleth saluted back. “Good morning to you as well. I trust I am needed elsewhere?”

The Knight nodded. “Lady Rhea has requested your presence in the Audience Chamber. She has asked for the child to be in attendance as well.”

That could only mean that Seteth had informed Rhea about the situation. She wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the archbishop being involved other than uneasy. The knight departed, leaving the room just as it was before.

Byleth extended her hand to the nameless child on the bed. The girl glanced at the hand and then back to her face. She raised an eyebrow before turning to Claude. “Am...am I supposed to do something?”

Claude gave a good-natured chuckle. “Teach wants to help you out of bed, squirt.”

An epiphany dawned on the nameless child’s face. “Oh! Like to walk and stuff!”

Byleth rolled her eyes. The girl was rather slow. She suspected it may have been a consequence of her memory issue.

“Um, I’m sorry, but I can’t walk. My legs don’t have enough meat on them.” Claude laughed again at the blunt phrasing. The green-haired child gestured to her thin legs, sure enough, they were like noodles. 

* * *

A short while later, Byleth found herself carrying the nameless girl bridal style down the hall to the audience chamber where the archbishop waited. She hoped that given enough time, the child’s legs would be strong enough to carry her weight.

As they neared the room in question, the knights that kept guard on either side of the massive doors hailed her as she approached and opened them wide, granting her entrance. The child’s face filled with awe at the sight of the room beyond.

The silhouetted figure of Rhea stood on the other end of the chamber, the early morning light shining brightly through the stained glass windows casting her in a nigh heavenly light, Seteth standing closely by. She looked so regal, every bit like the title of Archbishop she embodied, the leader of the followers of the goddess.

As Byleth got closer to her she took note of the soft smile she wore on her face, which filled with a familiar emotion as she turned her regal gaze downward to rest on the child she held in her arms. Her eyes filled with some unidentifiable emotion. It reminded Byleth of her first meeting with the woman.

It was unnerving. 

Rhea blinked and the emotion in her eyes vanished. “I have been awaiting your arrival, Professor. I see you have brought with you the child as I have requested. I see you are well, and it is a pleasure to meet with you as always.” The girl in her arms lifted her head to look at Rhea. Byleth could tell she was trying her best to put on a brave face.

“Hello, little one, I am Rhea. I have heard that you have been brought to my monastery under extraordinary circumstances. May I ask as to what your name might be?” Rhea asked softly.

The girl shifted uncomfortably against her cloak. She didn’t want to speak. Something about Rhea must have unnerved her, so Byleth answered for her. “She doesn’t remember anything. Not even her name.” 

Rhea’s eyes widened with surprise. The look returned to them for a fraction of a second before they returned to normal. “No memory you say? That is...most unfortunate. I am hopeful, however, that her memories may return with time.”

Byleth agreed, although from the girl had told her and Claude earlier in the infirmary, she doubted they would. But there was something...odd about the way Rhea reacted. Like she was hoping the child would confirm something to her, some hope perhaps.

“Now for the matter for which I called you here. For this month’s mission, there is a place that you must pay visit to. Only a very select few know of this place. You must go to the Holy Tomb.” The smile fell from the woman’s face.

“Forgive my ignorance archbishop, but why am I required to go to such a place?” Byleth questioned.

“Surely you have noticed the change in your hair? You have received sacred power from the goddess, and as her chosen, you must go to the tomb where you will receive a divine revelation from the goddess herself,” the archbishop intoned.

“The Holy Tomb is where the goddess sleeps. This monastery was originally built for the purpose of protecting her hallowed temple,” Seteth explained. “There is a legend about Saint Seiros and the Holy Tomb. They say Saint Seiros, the first individual to be gifted with the goddess’ divine power, received her revelation there.”

A revelation? She wondered if it would accomplish anything, Sothis was gone. The old goddess's power now belonged to her. 

“She was told that it was her sacred duty to save the people of Fódlan, and she must use her power wisely in order to lead them. The words that were handed down to Seiros from the goddess will likely fall upon your ears as well,” Rhea’s soothing voice explained further.

"Prepare yourself to go at the end of the month. There, you may find out why you were blessed with such power. There will be a Ceremony at the Holy Tomb. It is then you will receive the goddess’s revelation. You may share this mission with your students.”

“Do you think it is wise to bring the students into a matter like this? I was under the impression that I would be doing this on my own.” Byleth asked.

“It is said that when Seiros received her revelation, she had holy warriors by her side, protecting her. Your students, who have followed you and fought alongside you in the darkest of times, are well suited to stand by you for the ceremony. Of course, as the leader of the Church of Seiros, I will be by your side as well,” Rhea answered Byleth’s question, but what she said next threw her for a loop. “Though, I must request that when you leave for the Holy Tomb, you take the child in your arms with you.”

Seteth’s eyes widened. “Archbishop? Why must the girl accompany the professor? Do you not see the state she is currently in? If something were to go wrong, she would be left helpless!”

Rhea shook her head. “I have my reasoning, Seteth. I believe that this girl is a blessing from the goddess. She has been chosen as our dear professor has. Was she not found under mysterious circumstances the very same night that the professor received divine power?”

Seteth looked defeated, but he knew better than to fight a losing battle. “Yes, I suppose so.” He still looked unsure of the prospect.

The girl in Byleth’s arms looked uncomfortable, her face became determined, and then in her soft, high voice, finally spoke up. “Wherever Mother goes, I go too.”

The color vacated Rhea’s face. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks. “Mother...you say?” Did Rhea look spooked? Seteth closeby didn’t look much better.

The girl nodded firmly. “Yes. She is my mother.”

The archbishop’s mouth fell open, closed, and then opened again, as if she was trying to find the right words to say, but couldn’t. A few beats of silence passed and she was able to find her voice. “Are you sure you have no recollection of your name?”

The girl’s hands grew sweaty. “Umm, yes?” 

Rhea's gaze turned down, the look crossing her face. It seemed almost like...sadness? "It is alright." Her head turned up once again, the look disappearing as quickly as it came. 

"Much has changed, but your duty has not wavered. Steel your mind for the ceremony, and prepare your students, and the child as well. Now before we depart, since the girl has no name of which to speak, I must ask that you decide on one. We cannot continue to simply call her 'girl' or ‘child’." He gestured to the child in question. "Is there anything you would wish to be called?"

"A name? For me? I-I can’t think of any." The girl looked confused before brightening. “Oh! How about Tu! I like Tu!”

“Is that short for something?” Seteth asked, sounding like he was bracing himself.

“Yeah! Tu-morrow! Tomorrow! I just like the way that word sounds!”

The Archbishop’s second winced. “Anything but that, please.”

“Well, then how about-”

"Niamh."

The word was so sudden Byleth wasn't quite sure who had spoken it at first. Looking around at Rhea and Seteth, they were staring at her. She must have said it then.

That look had returned to the Archbishop's face, wide eyes, and pale skin. "Where did you hear that name?"

"I'm not sure. It was the first thing to come to my mind," she tried to explain, but she wasn't sure how good a job she was doing. How could she even try? The word came from somewhere. Somewhere buried deep in her mind. It just came out when she thought of the young girl, it just seemed to fit.

"Niamh. Nee-yaam. I like it." The word rolled off of the girl's- or rather off of Niamh's- tongue like butter.

And with that matter taken care of, Byleth and the newly dubbed Niamh left the Audience Chamber to return the young girl to the infirmary.

* * *

Claude observed the entire exchange from one of his many top-tier hiding places. He was fortunate enough to have been able to find this one shortly before the school year had started while he was, ahem, familiarizing himself with his new surroundings. How could anyone expect him to stay behind from a meeting where important information would be shared, one with the Archbishop herself nonetheless?

What he had overhead was nothing short of fascinating. Rhea and Seteth were not their usual selves. He was lucky enough to have arrived before Teach did, so he was able to do a little eavesdropping on the Archbishop and her right hand. What did they mean by something questionable happening to his teacher?

The archbishop had been particularly odd with how she reacted around the girl. The woman wasn't winning any awards for trustworthiness anyway, but this was ridiculous! She was so obvious! 

Normally Rhea was hard to read, but for some reason from the moment Teach had walked in with the child in her arms she had seemed sad, but at the same time desperately hopeful. What intrigued him the most was how she reacted when Byleth had named Niamh. She was shocked. 

They didn't sound like they had any plans at all of sharing that information, and speculation could only do so much good. He sighed under his breath as he stealthily left his hiding place, just a second too early to see Niamh’s shadow move slightly.

* * *

_~_

~~_You do know it's not that easy, don’t you?_ ~~

_~_

* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh, remember last time when I said time-effective? *sweats nervously*
> 
> Hey, so I'm not dead, despite what the world tries to throw at me! School Projects, COVID-19, little cousins, or even 5.7 magnitude earthquakes! (Woke up in the middle of that, scared me to death!)
> 
> So this one has been a long time coming, and hopefully, the next one will be out a bit faster. So what do you think of the name? I noticed that a lot of the Nabatean names were Celtic in origin, so I chose the name Niamh, meaning radiance, or brightness.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who gave kudos and bookmarked! This story is at over 100 kudos now!
> 
> EDIT: (9/17/20) - rewrote the chapter a bit and added some things, included a bit of foreshadowing.


	4. Progression I

The sun set and dawned anew. Time moved on, such was a fact of life, as the girl was beginning to learn. 

She supposed that wasn’t the way she should refer to herself anymore. She wasn’t just the little soul anymore, she had a body, an identity. She wasn’t just the girl, or that child anymore either; she had a name, and that name was Niamh.

She felt her mouth do the up twitchy thing that it did in happy people. It was  _ so much better  _ than the name she had come up with. Seriously,  _ Tu-morrow?  _ What in existence was she thinking? She liked the one Mother had come up with a lot more. She hoped that name would stay for a long time. So many changes in identity in such a short time span were  _ confusing. _

_ The soul has become the child, and the child has become Niamh. _

Layers upon layers, experience upon experience. 

Soul upon body, upon name, upon memory. 

Was that the equation for existence?

Calling upon the memories she had made anew from her short time living again, Niamh supposed it was.

Hmm. She hadn’t thought about it before, but she was thoughtful wasn’t she? Was there anyone else alive that would even think to ask a question such as that? Probably not. There wasn’t anyone alive that had gone through what she had. Perspective was born from experience, and Niamh’s time in the Nothing had given her nothing but time to think. 

She may have escaped the Nothing, but an old enemy had reared its stupid ugly head as soon as they had returned from the talk with the weird sad lady and that other guy.

Doing nothing all day was  _ soooooo boooorrriiiiiing. _

The first few days passed in a hazy blur as she made progress towards physical recovery. Niamh was largely left alone with only her thoughts as company. The only thing Niamh could do was stare at the wall, or if she wanted to spice things up, the ceiling. 

_ How exciting. _

The first day after they had returned, Star brought some stacks of white parchment enclosed in some sort of tight colorful leather shell and dropped them on the end of her bed. 

“What are these?” Niamh raised an eyebrow, the gesture for confusion she had picked up on rather quickly if she said so herself, which she did.

“You-you don’t know what books are.” 

“Well, I asked you for a reason, didn’t I?” Niamh smiled.

Star could only sigh, radiating a melody of good-natured exasperation that left as quickly as it came. “Books,” he introduced, picking up a thin one with a well-worn blue cover. “One of mankind’s greatest inventions, and an all-around great way to send boredom running. Here take a look," He opened the strange new object and placed it in her arms.

Niamh curiously took the book out of his hands and squinted at the open pages. In the center of the page was what looked like an image of what looked like a young woman sitting in a garden full of white puffy things with leaves- _ flowers _ . " _ Woah," _ she exhaled. "Who is that?"

But how did she get here? It was a picture, like one you would see with your eyes. Like reality, but not quite. She stroked the pages with a finger but only felt the smooth and slightly lumpy paper. It was like someone had taken a scene, somehow squashed it flat, and fused it to the page!

But the weirdest thing about the seemingly magical object was the marks scratched into the paper below the images in uniform parallel rows. She racked her brain for information. These symbols had the faintest song signature she had ever felt attached to them, the barest hint of any sort of meaning. If these symbols had meaning, and they were here for people to look at, could they be for communication? Were these things... _ words? _

The older boy gestured to the woman on the paper. "This is a storybook. It tells a story that may or may not be true. This one is called  _ 'The Maiden and the White Roses'." _

The child squinted at the words and tilted her head. "But why would you want to hear a story that wasn't true?

He flipped the page, and on the other side, it showed a different scene, the same lady as before holding a garland of the white flowers up into the air. "Hmm. Good question. It depends on the person. Lots of stories are just things that happened a long time ago, but sometimes people make up stories to make sense of the world."

"But why would they need to do that?" She thought about it for a moment, and a previously foreign idea planted itself in her mind. But that couldn't be the case, could it? "You mean people  _ don't _ know everything?"

He shook his head, his braid swinging slightly as he did. "Nope. Humans are clueless about a lot of things. If they don't know any better and they find things you don't understand, they'll try to find the simplest thing that makes sense to them and believe that," He took a breath and then continued. "But thinking like that leads to misunderstandings. The commonly held belief isn't always the truth."

Niamh looked at Star with wide eyes. "So if it isn't the truth, how do you find it?"

Star smiled, but his song and his face said very different things. "You learn as much as you can, do as much as you can, and maybe someday people will find the same truth as you."

Niamh had a feeling he knew what he was talking about, but before she could do or say anything, his song snapped back to normal with enough force to give anyone listening whiplash. "But back to your question, stories are just fun to hear."

"So I'll finally have something to do?" She dropped the book and threw her arms up in excitement. "That's awesome!'

"...You don’t know how to read do you?”

“That's beside the point!" The girl huffed angrily.

Apparently, the knowledge Niamh had borrowed from Mother pertaining to the spoken tongue didn’t cover the written variety. Go figure.

Star sat down on the bed next to her and picked up the book from where it was lying spine up, angling the pages so they could both see the picture on the inside. He raised his arm and ruffled her hair.

Niamh huffed and tried to push him away. “ _ Hey! _ ”

Star chuckled. “It's okay. You can’t read, but I know a certain handsome scoundrel who can.”

Niamh’s eyes grew wide, the odd song was forgotten. “Really? Who?”

Star sputtered. “Wha-It’s  _ me! _ I’m the handsome scoundrel!”

Scoundrel? Niamh, filing the weird word away for later, pointed at the words on the open page of the book between them. “Then start reading, scoundrel man!”

“Geez, you're impatient…” He ran a hand through his hair. “Alright,  _ Once upon a time, many years ago there lived a beautiful maid…” _

From then on, every night as the sun would set and color the sky a dark red, as long as all his work was done, Star would come and read to her a story contained in one of the books. She learned to love the stories, and how animated Star would get as he acted them out for her. Sometimes he would even give the characters funny voices that would make her laugh.

She had to give the guy credit where it was due. Books  _ were _ a great way to send boredom running.

* * *

~

_ \----and ẗ̴̙́h̴̢̚è̵̳ w̷̭̎ö̵̞́r̸̮̎ľ̸͕ḑ̷̂ _

w _ ̸̧̨̼͚͗͋͐̓ẩ̶̹s̸̮̋̽ ̶̼̗͍̟͠d̴̖̣̕r̶̦̺̜̈́ǒ̶̡̤̝̎w̷̜̌n̵̨̛͓͖̐̚͜e̴̺͙̻̓̋d̸̫͇͎͊  _

_ i̸̓ ͇̯͓̀͘ṋ̵̡͇̍̂̈̎ ̵̤̏ả̸̭̲̾ ̴̗͋̽̽́ŝ̸̗̥͎͋͂̉ȅ̸̗͓͌ã̴̠̿͜͝ ̷̝̥̖̍̚͝o̵͕̖̥̥̽̎̾f̴͉̺̳̳͂ ̶̗̠̾̚p̸͕͉͉̠̃̈́̎̓́i̶̹̊̈́̒̂͋t̷͙̒̓̓͘͠c̴̥͐͑̓̀̕͜͝h̸̩̗͊͐ͅ-̸̅̀̕̕- _

  
  


~

* * *

Three mornings later, Manuela insisted she start a thing called ‘physical therapy’. Apparently, it was a way for them to strengthen her legs little by little so eventually, she would be able to walk on her own. 

Niamh was ecstatic about it at first. Finally, she wouldn’t have to sit in bed and do nothing all day! She imagined running around, feet against the dirt, and the sun overhead. It must be so much fun!

Unfortunately, you had to be able to walk before you could run, and her noodle legs weren't doing her any favors.

Every afternoon Manuela would have Mother come in and they would work on strengthening her legs together. Their first few attempts were absolute flops-literally,

but she had a good feeling about this one! Today was the day she would finally walk more than a few steps without getting a bruised rear end!

Niamh positioned herself on the edge of the bed with little difficulty. The exercises she had been doing to strengthen her muscles in the past few days had done their job. She only prayed that they were strong enough to support her full weight for more than a few seconds. She hated being confined to the bed all day. She longed to run around, to see the world outside she had glimpsed through the window.

Mother was standing closeby ready to catch her if she fell. Manuela, a little ways away, evaluating her. Now, it was the moment of truth. Niamh slowly slid off of the mattress, her feet finding the hardwood beneath them, her hands reluctant to leave the blankets as they held her up. She pushed slightly, hands coming free of the bed, allowing her legs to take on the full weight of her new body. Unfortunately for Niamh, she 

may  _ have _

miscalculated-

_ THU MP. _

-and the floor eagerly came up to meet her face.

_ Gr eat. _

Just as Mother took a step towards her to help her up, Niamh got to her knees and thrust out a hand to stop her. “Wait. I can do this!” Her heart was filled with determination.

She shakily brought up one foot, and then the other, arms spread out wide as she tried to find her balance, and then she took her first step on her own two feet. 

It was followed by another, and then another. Then she looked up and found the person she was looking for. She laughed. “Mother, look! I did it! I can walk now!”

Mother gave a small smile, but her song told a different story, one betraying her meager facial expressions. Her symphony’s cadence ascending with pride. It made her own song resonate with that same wonderful contagious feeling.

Unfortunately, you would find, if you were as new to standing as Niamh was in that moment, required concentration. All it takes is a momentary distraction and-

_ C RASH. _

* * *

Eventually, Niamh was permitted to leave the infirmary. With a cane. And a chaperone.

Mother gave her a short tour of the sprawling halls of Garreg Mach, pointing out where every room was, which hallway led to where. They walked hand in hand, just in case she lost her balance, her cane tapping the floor as they went along.

Passersby going about their daily business stopped to stare at them. Niamh knew that Mother was quite popular around for her job as a professor, apparently, she was quite good at it. It didn’t strike her as something to stare for. Then it struck her. They were staring at her, weren’t they?

Mother simply tugged on her wrist and urged Niamh to follow her. They walked up a staircase from a grassy area and came to a small room surrounded by similar ones.

“These are the dormitories where the students stay. This is my room.” Mother gestured at the one in front of them. The dark wood of the door towered above. Niamh wondered why the door needed to be soon tall. No one could get that tall, could they? 

She took Niamh by the hand again and pulled her inside. The room was similar to the infirmary, the polished brown wood floor, and walls made of stacked stone. There was a desk at one end, a board covered with papers hanging on the wall beside it, and a bed on the opposite side of the room. “This is where we will be staying.”

“There’s only one bed,” Niamh's attention drifted to it. “It’s only big enough for one person. Well, I am smaller, maybe I could squeeze-”

“You’ll take the bed, and I’ll sleep on the floor.” 

That made Niamh raise an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that? I mean, I’ve fallen on the floor enough to know that it's not the most comfortable place.” 

“It’s alright. I have had to sleep in the dirt many times while I was growing up.”

The young girl’s eyes widened. Seeing the silent question in her eyes made the woman continue.

Mother crossed her arms, her songs tones slowed and grew more somber, almost melancholic. But why? She must have been thinking about something then. “I was a mercenary before I came to the Monastery.”

_ Mercenary _ was a word very familiar to Niamh, or from the knowledge, she had copied that was. A sellsword, someone people would hire to complete tasks for them, most commonly of the violent variety. Being hired by so many different people meant you would have to almost always be traveling. There couldn't be beds everywhere, could they?

_ Wait _ . If Mother was a mercenary before, she must be like the heroes in the stories Star read her! The ones that went on adventures and beat the villains! In some of the books, there were people the hero hired to help them. She must have stories to tell! The green-haired girl vibrated with excitement. 

Just then there was a knock at the door cutting Niamh off before she could say or do anything. Mother went over to the door and opened it. In the doorway stood the smiling face of another girl with a black and gold dress and green hair like her and Mother’s separated into voluminous twists framing her face. “Good day Professor! My brother instructed me to bring some new clothes for your daughter. Is she here?” 

“My daughter... _ right _ . She’s here.” Mother stepped out of the way to reveal Niamh behind her.

The older girl stepped past Mother towards her. Now that her vision wasn’t obstructed, Niamh could see that she was carrying a few bundles of cloth, a pair of black boots lying prone atop them. “Hello! I don’t believe that we have met yet! I am Flayn, Seteth’s younger sister. You are Niamh correct? I've not heard much about you aside from the rumors.”

Niamh was a bit taken aback by Flayn’s show of friendliness. She was the one who was the most open out of everyone who she had interacted with since her return to existence. She then decided she liked Flayn and put on her biggest smile. “Yes, that’s me. Nice to meet you.” 

Flayn beamed at her and handed Niamh the bundle of clothes and the boots “Here you are. My brother had some of the tailors in town make these, although I am remiss to admit they might not be the highest quality. There’s a dress, a shawl for the cold weather, and some boots. It was nice to meet you, and I would love to stay and chat, but I have other errands I need to run after this. Perhaps we can talk later over a cup of tea?

Niamh smiled and waved after her as she made her exit from Mother’s room. “I’d like that! I’ll see you later then!”

Both Mother and Niamh left shortly after that. She had a rather large box of lost items accumulated and needed to find their owners, so Niamh was left on her own and instructed to explore the monastery

She was alone again, but this time she could walk. No more boredom!

The only problem was deciding where to go.

* * *

Lysithea stared thoughtfully at the open book below her. The components of the spell laid out clearly on the pages. Her eyes ran over the text, again and again, eagerly soaking in any and all information they could provide. 

She scoured the diagram of the spell matrix. Hmm. It made her wonder, how would a spell such as this react with a crest that boosted offensive magical power? It wasn’t quite powerful in the traditional sense, but maybe it would produce a different kind of reaction…

The prospect of studying new and such potentially useful spells made her feel giddy like her very bones were vibrating with excitement. Discoveries of the mystical arts being put to use in so many new and exciting ways!

In theory, if she could somehow combine the basics of this Thunder spell (the part that created a small river of lightning) with the power of her Major Crest of Gloucester and sent the power through some sort of conducting material, the power of the crest would allow her to control the normally volatile stream of sparks so she could direct the flow anywhere she wished! It could even be curved or split into multiple streams! She wasn’t quite certain of what uses it could have right now, but the idea alone was promising! She wondered if Professor Hanneman would be interested in helping her set up an experiment. Would the type of metal have any effect on the results…?

Suddenly, a quiet thud emanating from somewhere in the room broke her out of her study-induced trance. 

She turned her head slowly, only to see the darkness of the uninhabited library behind her.  _ “What was that?” _ She whispered to herself, dread mounting. Her pulse rate skyrocketed. It was probably nothing, just a misplaced book falling off a table, or maybe a mouse. Nothing to panic over.

_ “Oh, and just so you know...I heard a rumor that this library is haunted.” _

She broke out into a cold sweat as she remembered Claude’s words from a few months prior. Oh, dear. What if he was right? What if there _ really were _ ghosts in the library at night?!

Lysithea got up from her chair as quietly as she could, clutching the book she had been reading a moment prior to her chest, cringing when the chair’s wooden legs scraped against the flagstone floor and let loose a loud unearthly screech. If the ghost hadn’t spotted her already, there was  _ no way _ it hadn’t now! Oh, goddess, she should have  _ never _ stayed up so late studying! No magical discovery was worth a terrible fate at the hands of the dead! 

Lysithea, who was hoping against all hope that her trembling wasn't noticeable, carefully took a step forward, a Miasma spell ready to be cast from her left hand. She took another step, then another, and finally broke into a run. There just ahead were the doors! Unfortunately, they were closed tight, but to the panicked and fear-stricken teenager she was, there were no other obvious means of escape.

Her feet pounded against the floor, stopping as her hands came to a stop on the door’s wooden exterior. Lysithea pushed with everything her short arms could manage, but the doors refused to give. She looked down. “Oh, that’s right. This door has a lock.” She realized rather dumbly before the full ramifications of what that meant sank in a moment later. She must have been here so long the knights had locked her in by mistake!

She had been doomed by the thing she loved most- _ Studying _ .

Oh no. Nonononono! Lysithea shook the door helplessly. Being locked in a haunted library was not how she wanted to spend her night.  _ “Someone! Someone help! _ I’m trapped in here!” She let go of the handle and pounded against the door with both fists, hoping that if she made enough noise, someone would come. A knight, Professor Hanneman, she would even settle for Seteth!

She felt a slight tap on her shoulder and instantly her blood turned to ice.

_ The ghost was right behind her, wasn’t it? _

“Um, hello?”

Lysithea screamed. She was ashamed to admit it sounded rather childish.

She fell onto her rear and pressed her back against the door as hard as she could manage, arms up to shield her face from the apparition that was surely now in front of her. Her entire body tensed, waiting for the doom that was sure to come.

“Are you okay? You screamed.”

That-that didn’t sound like a ghost. She lifted her eyelids ever-so-slightly. In the dim light of a lamp that she failed to notice amid her panic, was a smudge of dark green. She opened her eyes more to reveal the full concerned face of a person, a  _ very alive _ person, not a ghost, thank the Goddess _. _

The child in front of her was shorter than her, leaning part of her weight on a cane. She had green hair a bit like the professor’s, a similar face shape dusted with freckles-wait! She had seen this girl before! The strange child the professor had come out of that tear in the sky with! Lysithea hadn’t seen her since they had come back to the monastery later that same night. For some reason the professor hadn't wanted to answer any of her class's questions, only telling them to be patient and they would know eventually. She had forbidden anyone other than Claude to visit her in the infirmary.

“Did I scare you?” The now identified, though still nameless, the child asked. 

Lysithea shakily got to her feet, the adrenaline of the last minute wearing off. “Yes, as a matter of fact, you did, and I’ll advise you not to do it again.”

“Um, okay? I’ll try not to. What are you doing here this late?” The concern on the girl’s face shifted into confusion.

“I was studying until you so rudely interrupted me.” Lysithea tried in vain to bandage her wounded pride.  _ Way to go, Lysithea. That sounded terrible! _

The girl in front of her didn’t seem bothered, in fact, she seemed delighted. “Oh, I recognize you! You were one of the noisy people the night I came back!” Lysithea blanched. One of the noisy people? That was how this girl remembered her? The rest of her class certainly gave off that impression. Well, maybe not Marianne…

“That’s right, you don’t know my name yet! I’m Niamh. What’s yours?”

“My name is Lysithea von Ordelia. Pleased to make your acquaintance,” She gave the formal bow nobles always gave when introducing themselves. “You don’t have a surname?”

Niamh tilted her head. “I don’t think so? I didn’t even have a name before a few days ago. I suppose if Mother has one I might have hers? That's the way family names work, isn't it?”

Lysithea sighed and filed that under ‘Things to ask the professor later’. There were more pressing matters at the moment. Like how they were going to get out of here. It was long past curfew and the doors were locked from the outside, no one would likely come and unlock them until morning. If she was caught having spent the entire night in the library, Seteth would ban her from using it until she graduated! She would have to find a way out then. Then a thought struck her and she looked up at Niamh. “If the door is locked, how did you manage to get in here?”

Niamh grinned at that. “Oh, that. I used the wall passages! Star showed me them earlier today! This place is full of them!” Her face fell as she made a realization. “Oh, I better get back to Mother’s room soon or she might not be too happy with me.”

“Wait, wall passages? Of course...the monastery has secret passages.” It seemed so obvious in hindsight. Old structures like this were practically guaranteed to have at least a few of them. “So where is the one that let you come in here?”

Niamh gestured for Lysithea to follow her. She lead her to an old, yet well-kept bookshelf at the back of the library, one that seemed a great deal older than the ones surrounding it, meaning it hadn’t been replaced recently. 'Recently' could mean anytime in the last century or two. It wouldn’t have surprised her if this perculiar shelf had been there since the Monastery’s founding.

Niamh searched for a moment, before pulling on an old gray book the same color as the stone floor beneath them. Lysithea heard a click and one of the tiles by the base of the bookshelf recessed into the floor and then rolled aside, revealing a new dark tunnel. Niamh pointed to it. “Star told me to follow this. It should lead us out.”

Niamh jumped down into the passage below only to immediately be stopped by the floor below. “It's kinda cramped, so we’re gonna have to crawl.” She knelt, her body now fully submerged beneath the library’s floor, and then on her hands and knees scooted forward. Pulling her cane behind her.

A moment passed and Niamh's voice echoed back through the passage.  _ “Well, are you coming?” _

Lysithea shrugged, and then followed the green-haired girl into the passage below. Crouching, she still managed to hot her head on the ceiling.

* * *

It was after the fourth wrong stop Lysithea started to wonder if Niamh even knew where she was going.

As it turned out, she didn’t.

When pressed about it, Niamh could only smile sheepishly. “Um, Star only told me about these earlier today. I don’t know where all these tunnels lead yet.”

Lysithea sighed. “I suppose it falls on me to be the navigator then. Why do you call Claude that by the way?”

Fortunately for them and their spines, not all of the passages made them crawl. A lot were high enough to comfortably fit someone a lot taller than them, as they were both on the short side. 

Lysithea took the lamp from Niamh and mentally retraced their steps, trying to overlay her mental map of the passages over what she knew of the Monastery’s layout. By her calculations, they should be on the first floor at least. Somewhere in between the Dining Hall and the Academy, not far from the dorms.

After a minute or so of silence, Lysithea was pulled out of her thoughts by Nimah’s answer to her question. “Before I answer that, can you tell me something?” The girl’s voice sounded soft.

“Go ahead.”

“Can you hear them? The songs that souls make?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lysithea answered truthfully.

Niamh exhaled. Her tone grew somber suddenly. “...I guess I really am the only one then.”

They continued walking in silence while Lysithea waited for the green-haired girl to answer. She eventually did.

“I can hear-well I guess  _ feel _ would be a better way to put it-the songs souls produce. Everyone has one. Everything’s song kinda mixes together and that makes all of reality. It's kinda like- what’s that word- _ energy! _ Kinda like an energy that everyone and everything has. Their souls make it, so it’s proof that something is alive,” Niamh rambled on, “Some people have more energy and some people have less. Sorry, that must sound  _ really _ confusing.”

That struck a familiar chord within the white-haired girl’s mind. Could it be she was talking about every human’s capacity for at least some magic? “So what does this have to do with why you call Claude that?”

“I was getting to that. It’s because His song just feels like a star. It's part of him. Your song is what fills you, it makes you...well,  _ you. _ Blood is kinda similar if you ask me. It's just there, making you who you are. Sort of like how your’s feels very... ambitious? I dunno of that's the right word. Part of it feels loud like lightning and another part feels quick and sly, kinda like a fox...but the strangest part of it is that those two parts don’t feel like  _ you _ . They interfere with your normal song, they tangle it up, choke it. Something else put them there. Something bad.”

Lysithea stopped dead. She turned to the younger girl and stared right into her eyes. “You can feel my crests.” 

Niamh’s expression grew uncertain. “If that’s what you call those then I guess that I can?”

“Is there any way to remove them?”

Niamh looked taken aback by that. “Uh, the foreign songs? Maybe? If something put them there, then they can be taken away again. It’s only a matter of finding how. It'll probably be hard though.”

Lysithea's head spun. It was possible to remove them? The crests that cut away her life? Her head didn’t know what to think, but her heart knew what to feel.

Something dared bloom deep within it. A small grain of hope, probably no bigger than a mustard seed.

But that was enough.

Was it- Was it possible that she would get to grow up? To grow old? To get married and maybe have children? To not force her wonderful parents to bury their only remaining daughter early?

There was a trail of wetness traveling down her face. 

She wiped it with her sleeve and turned away from the other girl.

“Are you alright Lysithea?” Niamh’s voice sounded from behind her.

“I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”

  
  


* * *

~

_ T̷͈̺̳͑h̷̫͆ͅẻ̴̥͈͗͂ ̴̛͓ͅs̸̮̫̈́h̶͇͠a̸͙̰̓͜d̵̳͚o̶̡̝̞̊͆w̴̫̲̚ ̷̧̮̂͑h̶̞̓̈́̇ȗ̴̯̝̮ñ̵̯̓ḡ̴͈̜͝ẽ̸̹͖̂r̵͉̖͇̃͗͆e̴̮͐̃͜ḑ̸̮̿͠.̷̨́͛ _

  
  


~

  
  


̵ _ ̡͈͕̊̂I̵̮̺̔t̵̡́͊͆ ̵̞̄̾͘ẅ̸̛̜̳̩́ä̸̧͎́s̴̙̐ ̸̩̬̾f̷͍̎r̶̜̭͓͆̽͠ê̵͔̹ẹ̵̉͊.̷̙̻̳̉͠͠ _

  
  


~

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! this came out a little later than I was anticipating, but here it is! Hope you all enjoyed it.
> 
> Lately, I've been trying to come up with a concrete design for Niamh, and I think I've come up with one I like. If anyone's interested, maybe I'll include some of the sketches I did with Chapter 5. There's a few things I'd like to rework about it though.
> 
> EDIT: (11/11/2020) - Sorry about the lack of an update, anyone who may read this, but due to some factors on my part, the plot needed reworking, so I ended up having to rewrite and revamp the first five chapters so the story could progress without issue.


	5. Progression II

The sun was setting over the horizon, coloring the midsummer sky a deep purple. Birds were singing their last songs of the day, the crickets chirping, and the sleepy forest surrounding a small lake in the southern part of Alliance Territory began to wind down in preparation for the oncoming night. 

The dark sky reflected over the open water, it's reflective surface almost a perfect mirror of the sky above it, disturbed only by the motion of slight ripples.

A little girl sat on the edge of a small, rarely-used pier that a beat-up and abandoned dingey had been roped to. She swung her legs slowly in time with the rhythm of the small waves lapping against the posts of the pier below her. The cool breeze of the oncoming night nipped at her exposed skin. She shivered and hugged herself in an attempt to preserve body heat.

Night meant that her Papa would surely come to get her soon, as he always did. That was okay. She could wait while he did some of his business in town.

Still, she couldn't help but be a slight bit impatient, he _had_ promised after all. 

_Thunk, thunk, thunk._

Footsteps, heavy ones at that.

She turned her head to see the person coming up behind her. She hadn’t expected him to return so soon. She got to her feet and went to greet him, her feet clanking against the aged wooden boards below her. “Papa.”

Her father knelt to her level and patted her on the shoulder, his gruff voice dominating the otherwise quiet noise of the previously tranquil scene. “Hey, kiddo.” He grabbed her by the torso and hoisted her up into his arms. “Sorry I took so long. The client was being a bit difficult. Nothing I couldn't handle though."

He glanced at the open water, then back to her. "You really had your heart set on fishing with me today didn’t you?”

The little girl only gave him a nod. 

Papa sighed. “Never been much for words, have you?”

She shook her head.

“And Goddess don’t I know it…You're a mystery kid.” Papa trailed off as he looked at the sunset. He then glanced back at her, then to the lake below them. “Tell you what kid, how about you and me do a little fishing tonight anyway? It’s only just turning dark, and you look full of energy, so you won’t be getting much sleep, right?”

The little girl nodded again. Her papa could tell she was being eager. As eager as she could be. He’d always been the only one who could read her body language. Sometimes it caused complications.

She would be able to fish with him after all. She was…glad? 

And fish they did. Papa brought out a pair of rods, bait, and set up a small dimly lit lantern on the pier between them to provide them with a little light as the sun had fully set by then, the moon ascending from the opposite horizon, the sharp crescent not giving much in the way of light. They cast their lines into the water, and like an elegant hunter, silently waited for their prey to come to them.

“What you have to remember kid, is to quiet, not that you’ll have much trouble with that, but keep it in mind," Her hands tightened around her rod. 

"If you’re too loud then none of the fish will bite. You’ll just scare them off...I had an old friend of mine who was like that. He used to love to fish with me all the time. He was a bit of a chatterbox. Actually, no, that’s giving him too much credit. He was a loudmouth. Barely ever caught a fish in all the years I knew him.” Papa rambled on.

Time passed. He told her story after story, all of them about his old friend and the antics he would get up to.

but that was alright since she liked hearing his stories on the rare occasion that he would tell any. 

Her father's life seemed so interesting. She wished he talked more about it.

"...And right then my friend tripped over his own feet in front of the girl he was trying to impress- _Woah!"_ Her Papa raised his rod and leaned back. "This is a big one... _and it's gone."_

He pulled in the line and grabbed the end, showcasing an empty hook with no fish in sight. He looked at her and gave a small awkward smile. “The shouting must have scared it off...I guess I should listen to my own advice huh?”

She looked at him with her blank stare and smiled back in the same way. She would like to have laughed. 

By the time they finished fishing late into that evening, they had caught a generous helping of fish after that first failure, most of which came from Papa. She wasn’t that good at fishing yet. She kept pulling her line away before the fish actually bit down. Papa said she would get better with time though. She wondered if he was ever bad at fishing like her, if he was then maybe there could be hope for her?

Papa gathered up their things and started to head toward the inn they were staying at on that particular night. He urged her forward. “Hey kid, you coming?”

She got to her feet, clumsily walked over to him, and yawned. “I’m tired.”

Papa ruffled her dark hair affectionately. “Yeah me too. Let’s get back to the inn and get some shut-eye.” Before he could move again, the little girl’s arms were around his middle. She hugged him. Hard. She never wanted to let go.

“I love you, Papa.”

Her quiet words echoed around the scene with a nigh ethereal reverberation drowning out everything else. The lake's waves paused mid crest, crickets ceased to chirp, and the moon grew dark.

Everything was still.

Until it wasn't.

Glowing cracks formed along ephemeral borders, and like damaged glass-

~~_T_ _h_ ~~

__ _e_

~~_o_ ~~

~~_W_ _r_ _d_ ~~

~~_l_~~

~~**_B_ ** ~~

**_r o_ **

**_k e_ **

****

_Thunder crashed._

_The rain came down._

_Suddenly the quiet lake was gone, and Byleth found herself back at the old chapel._

_She was still a little girl, holding nothing but a wooden practice sword. This wasn’t right._

  
  


_“Wait!”_

_The witch._

_“Huh, another student?”_

_THE WITCH._

  
  


_“Thanks for all your help, sir~!”_

_“You’re just a pathetic old man.”_

  
  


_Kronya’s dagger finds Jeralt’s back._

_She laughs._

“ _PAPA!” Byleth screams and time moves backward._

  
  


_This time she runs up to stop Kronya, her pitiful wooden sword being reflected by the magic of that strange white-eyed man._

_Kronya’s dagger finds Jeralts back for the second time._

_She laughs._

_Time moves backward again._

  
  


_This time she tries a more strategic approach, Kronya moves to stab her, and Byleth pins the hand with the knife to her side and headbutts the witch with all the force her little body can conjure._

_It doesn’t work._

_The dagger stabs her before it finds her father._

_Kronya laughs once again._

_She cries out for her father weakly and as her life fades, she calls on time to reverse again from a pool of her own blood._

_This time, desperation mounting, she attempts to tackle Kronya to the ground. No use._

_She hears her father’s pained grunts._

_She’s too little. Too Useless._

_The witch laughs._

_Time reverses._

  
  
  


_Back._

_Kronya laughs._

_Back!_

_Kronya laughs._

**_Back!_ **

_Kronya laughs._

**_Back! Back! Back!_ **

_K r o n y a l a u g h s._

  
  


_~_

**_Why wasn’t this working?!?!_ **

_~_

_“Wait!”_

_“Huh, another student?”_

_“Thanks for all your help, sir~!”_

_“You’re just a pathetic old man.”_

“ _PAPA!”_

_~_

**_“You cannot change fate.”_ **

_~_

  
  
  


_“I’m sorry…” Byleth managed to squeeze out as she fell to the ground, all her energy spent, fighting just to breathe. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts._

_No divine pulses left._

_Sothis is silent._

_Papa’s eyes grow wide as Kronya’s dagger meets his flesh for the last time of countless._

_She weakly struggles to crawl over to him and holds him in her arms as his life ebbs away._

_The sky cries the tears she cannot._

_And Kronya laughs._

* * *

_Why do you torment yourself, child?_

* * *

With a gasp, Byleth awoke, her eyes searched their surroundings, lungs taking in short quick breaths as the adrenaline sang through her veins. Where was the old chapel? The rain? It took her a moment to reacquaint herself with reality.

_Breathe...in...out...in...out….in…….out...._

This place, it was...her bedroom in the Monastery. Just as it usually was. There was the bulletin board on the wall, the perch for the messenger owls, her journal spread out on the desk. Everything seemed perfectly normal, except for the fact that she was on the floor. Why was she on the floor again?

She turned her head to the bed and saw the sleeping form of Niamh. That’s right...Byleth volunteered to sleep on the floor yesterday so she could take the bed. Byleth was relieved to see she hadn’t woken her up at least.

Then...that place. The images from her sleep flashed across her memory. It was that dream again. That nightmare. 

She got to her feet and put on her day clothes. The chances she would get back to sleep tonight were so low as to be practically nonexistent, just as they were every night this occurred, so she figured might as well make the most of her time and go for a walk.

Byleth stepped lightly out of the room, careful to mind the squeaking floorboards near the door. She emerged from the doorway into the cold winter night beyond, the pegasus moon a sliver in the sky giving off faint light that made the frosty grass below its glow nigh otherworldly.

Winter was one of her favorite seasons; she enjoyed the nip of the air against her skin more so than the heat of the summer. It seemed like the cold air would take away all that upset her, reaching down into her soul and momentarily plucking out whatever problems were down there so she could focus on more important things.

Her boots thunked against the stone paths, leading her to no particular destination. That was part of what she enjoyed about late-night walks such as this one, the surprise of ending up somewhere you least expected.

That was how she found herself staring at the open sky sitting on the stairs between the fishing pond and the dining hall. Staring at the starry western sky above her watching as the stars rolling by on their set routes like the sky was some kind of unfathomable baby’s mobile. It made her feel small, but it did the same for everything else.

_“You cannot change fate.”_

She was so lost in the vastness of the sky that she almost didn’t feel the tap on her shoulder.

Byleth launched to her feet on instinct, unsheathing the dagger from her belt. She quickly spun 180 degrees, catching the person behind her off guard as with one swift motion she put the dagger at their throat.

“Woah! Woah! Teach, it's just me!” Claude yelped as he put his hands up in the universal ‘I surrender” gesture.

Byleth’s eyebrows furrowed. “Claude? What are you doing up this late?” She took the dagger away from his throat and sheathed it back at her waist.

He breathed a sigh of what she assumed was relief and dusted his coat off. “Geez, remind me never to sneak up on you again. I couldn’t sleep. Too much on my mind. I assume you’re in a similar predicament?”

Byleth sat back down on the stairway and motioned for Claude to do the same. “...Yes.”

He took the invitation and sat next to her. “So, stargazing?”

She nodded.”I sometimes do it to get my mind off of things.”

Claude scratched the back of his neck. “Hmm, same. Just looking at the huge sky makes the stuff down here seem a lot smaller in comparison. A whole lot less important.” She silently voiced her agreement. He sat down on the step just above hers and looked up at the sky. The shadow of something sat in his eyes. 

They sat in silence for a moment, until Byleth broke it. “Gold for your thoughts?”

Claude hummed, as though he was debating with himself whether to tell her or not. “I just can’t stop thinking about, well, everything. It frustrates me. I feel like answers we’re on the verge of answers, but at the same time, we're more in the dark than ever. I can’t help but think that we’ve found ourselves smack in the middle of a conspiracy years, if not ages, in the making.”

“We’re missing something. Something important, maybe even several somethings.” Byleth surmised.

“My thoughts exactly.” Claude snapped his fingers.”There’s some element that’s been deliberately buried all this time that connects all of this. And who do we know that’s notorious for hiding things?”

Byleth raised an eyebrow. “The Church?”

Claude gave a firm nod. “Yes, but I already knew something was fishy with them, and I don't mean Flayn. Seteth’s control over the library especially now that Tomas is gone is a testament to that."

He spun his braid limply around his forefinger. "We can say for certain now that there are at least two other factions at play here. Whatever group Solon and Kronya belonged to as well as the Flame Emperor. We also know that they work together because of the incident in Remire village, likely because they both aren’t happy with the church. The Flame Emporer didn't seem to like them very much, so their alliance isn't out of comradery."

Claude glanced at her and huffed. "I don't think we're getting anywhere in that direction with nothing but speculation. The church. Have you noticed anything else off about them lately?"

The memory of her last conversation with Rhea at the beginning of the month flashed across her mind. Thinking back, Byleth remembered the look on her face the first time she said Niamh’s name; how she looked like Lysithea after she thought she had seen a ghost. “...Come to think of it, Rhea reacted strangely to Niamh’s name.”

“Strange as in she recognized her? Looked spooked?” Claude tilted his head, looking the picture of innocence.

“Um, yes actually. How do you know that? You weren’t there,” Byleth paused for a moment before she realized. “You were spying on us weren’t you.” She deadpanned.

Claude shrugged, not looking the slightest bit ashamed. “Guilty as charged. How could you expect me to stay behind for such an important meeting?”

Byleth sighed and let the matter go. If they had to have been spied on, there was no one else she felt she could trust with the more confidential contents of that meeting. “Only you, Claude, only you.”

He grinned, only for his face to transition back to the serious expression it held a moment earlier. ”Just because of Rhea’s reaction I’m led to believe that the little squirt is too important to discount in this situation. Rhea knows something about her too, not that she's anything new to keeping secrets. I’ve never seen her react that way for anyone except maybe you. I guess interestingness runs in the family.”

Byleth slightly raised an eyebrow. “Squirt?”

“She calls me Star, I call her Squirt. We have a mutual understanding.” Claude clarified. Ah, so it was a nickname. “If my hunch is right and Rhea knows about Niamh, then if we can get her to talk, and that’s a big if, we could potentially learn more about who, or what exactly she is.”

“I doubt the Archbishop would actually reveal anything of importance under any circumstances we could engineer.” 

“Tch. It always revolves back around to her, doesn’t it? Has Seteth or Flayn said anything that could be suspicious?” Claude folded his arms in his lap.

“Seteth, no. I’ve tried interrogating Flayn, but that girl is as slippery as a fish.” Byleth craned her head back to look at the sky again, her eyes tracing some of the old constellations she had read about. “So you told Niamh about the secret passages?”

“Uh, yeah. She told you about that, huh? She came up to me this afternoon and asked about practically everything. She’s a really curious kid. Kinda reminds me of myself when I was younger, in that way at least.” 

Byleth’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Apparently, she and Lysithea had a little adventure in them earlier.” Byleth was grateful for the change of subject. She didn't want to dwell on anything too heavy at current.

Claude’s face stretched into that mischievous smile of his, the one he got when he heard a particularly fun bit of gossip. “Do tell Teach. Give me the juicy details. Was Lysithea staying up past her bedtime again?”

“Apparently. She stayed up studying and got locked in the library. Niamh found her and they used the passages to get out, but then they got lost. Imagine my surprise when I found them soaked stumbling back to the dormitory.”

“Soaked, you say?”

“They came out of the passages right below the waterfall in the fishing pond. They had to swim out.” Byleth smiled at the memory of finding them earlier that night, drenched from head to toe and smelling like fish.

“ _Pffttt..._ I didn’t even know the passages went there…” Claude laughed. 

That laugh of his, it sounded nice. He should laugh more often.

Byleth glanced his way. He looked surprised but at the same time slightly disturbed. Abruptly, Claude got to his feet, the strange expression leaving his face to make room for that familiar mask of smooth confidence. “I don’t know about you, but I’m suddenly feeling tired. I’d best get at least some sleep before class starts. _’A well-rested student is an attentive studen_ t’ as Professor Hanneman always says. Or something like that. Anyway, goodnight!” And with that, he was gone.

_Weird_ , Byleth thought, blinking in confusion. _Was it something I said?_

* * *

_~_

_~(_ _The tentacles of darkness dug into scale and feather alike, refusing to detach_ _)~_

_~_

* * *

When Claude showed up to class later that morning (He slept in a bit longer than he would have liked, but he would like to think he wasn’t Hilda levels of late) he was surprised to find a thick crowd of people densely huddled around the classroom entrance of the Golden Deer classroom, mainly comprised of other students and a few knights who probably should have been doing other things.

What was this about? Unfortunately, he had an example to set as the house leader, and as such he had a class to get to, and that meant one thing; going through that mess. Taking a deep breath, he shimmied between the nearest person and the wall and stepped through the writhing mass of humanity. “Sorry. Sorry. Excuse me. House leader coming through, people.” As he bumped into people on his voyage through, he couldn’t help but pick up on the things the crowd was whispering to one another.

_“Is that her?”_

_“It has to be, no way it could be anyone else.”_

_“Do you think those rumors were true?”_

The moment he stepped into the classroom he understood what they were talking about. In the back of the classroom near Teach’s podium, Niamh stood awkwardly watching the crowd as she hugged an armored bear stuffy tightly. Poor kid probably had no idea what they were on about. He felt a pang of empathy for her. He knew how that felt.

He went over to his usual place and took a seat, walking past everyone that had come earlier. Teach got up from behind the podium and addressed the class. “Thank you for joining us today Claude. We were afraid that you decided not to.”

He heard snickering behind him and turned around to see Hilda bearly stifling her laughter. Hilda was here before him? That seldom ever happened. He turned his head around the room to see everyone else, Ignatz adjusting his glasses awkwardly, Raphael smiling widely, probably not understanding the situation, and Sylvain in a similar state to the pink-haired girl. Come to think of it, everyone was here. He was the last one to class after all. Dang. So much for not being Hilda levels of late.

Byleth took the situation back by the reigns and steered it back on track. “Thank you all for coming today. Where you all are supposed to be,” she glared at the mob in the classroom entrance.

A baritone voice sounded from behind the still murmuring crowd in the doorway. “ Yes, I have to agree, don’t you all have better places to be, duties to perform, perhaps?” Heads from around the room turned to see the crowd part like a herd of scared sheep and dispersing as Seteth made his way into the room. The archbishop’s advisor held his hands behind his back and walked to the front of the room.

“Hello Seteth, what can I help you with today?” The professor greeted plainly. Claude inwardly sighed. There was only one thing he could be here for, to monitor the flow of information. Make sure nothing came up that the church might not like, most likely.

“Good day, professor. I believe that it is in the church’s best interest if I were to attend your class’s meeting this morning.” The man’s eyes were unwavering.

Teach’s gaze gave nothing away either. “Of course. Do whatever you feel is necessary.”

The green-haired man found a spot standing in the back of the room, his presence looming over the classroom like an ever-vigilant hawk atop a watchtower. He saw Niamh shiver out of the corner of his eye.

The tension left their professor’s stance as she stood behind the podium to address the class as usual. “Now, as you can see, we have a guest today besides Seteth,” Her gaze traveled across the room, observing his fellow student’s reactions. “Some of you may know her, some of you may not, but she wanted to meet all of you, and I know that you all must be curious as well,"

Ah, so today was the day that everyone else would be able to meet their mystery girl. He supposed they had been holding back information longer than necessary. But, overwhelming the girl while she was still in the infirmary would have probably been a bad idea. Now that she could walk (albeit, still with a cane) they could have this question and answer session in a better setting. 

“Before we move on to today’s lessons, you can ask either her or me whatever questions you would like.” Teach continued.

Sylvain raised his hand.

“Within reason, of course.”

Sylvain lowered his hand.

Byleth leaned over and whispered something into her ear. Niamh nodded and shot to her feet, and gave the students a shy wave. “Hello. My name is Niamh. It is a pleasure to meet you all.” She said the sentence rather inorganically, lending credence to the idea that someone had told her to say the greeting exactly as she had.

Claude heard Hilda squeal behind him as several others started talking excitedly. _“She’s so cute! Marianne, don’t you think she’s cute?”_

“Um, uh, yes?” The demure girl agreed.

“It’s nice to meet you too!” Raphael guffawed loudly, Lorenz, who was next to him, cringed at the loudness, much to Claude’s delight.

Lorenz, ever the picture of a proper gentleman, and the only one to do so over the cacophony of hooligans, was the one to start them off. He raised his hand and patiently waited, only to be called on a moment later. “Why do you claim to be the professor’s daughter?”

Niamh tilted her head, obviously not understanding the question. “Because I am?”

Lorenz was quick to follow it up. “Forgive me if I find your claim a tad unbelievable. After all, no one had ever seen you before the night of the last mission. No one, even those in the professor’s old mercenary group had any idea who you were. It is as if you simply popped into existence that night.”

Niamh smiled. “Oh, that's easy. I’m new.”

Claude could see Lorenz swallow a retort and looked to their professor. To be fair, their relationship was anything but conventional. Given Teach’s presumed age, and Niamh’s appearance, it would have made more sense if they were, say, sisters; mother and daughter not so much. But the late captain Jeralt only ever had one child, his teacher never having known her mother (and not to be harsh on the captain or anything, but he found it was unlikely Teach got her looks from him) He had heard of cases back in his homeland of girls bearing children that young, but it was rarely healthy for any of them.

Teach’s expression was blank. “As I said earlier, she is under my protection. That is all you need to know regarding the matter. She seemed unwilling to go any further down that line of questioning. 

The house leader had to wonder if saying that was the right course of action. Not denying or confirming it. The others might think Niamh was delusional, Lorenz already did. They probably should have at least tried to come up with some kind of believable cover story. Unfortunately, everyone currently here sans Flayn and Seteth had been there when Niamh had made her entrance. Their Occam's razor would have to be the slightly modified truth.

Fortunately, his classmates seemed eager to move on to other topics.

Their new transfer Lindhardt raised his hand. “Do you know if you have a crest? If you do, is it, perchance, the same as the professors?” Hmm. Interesting question Lindhardt. He might have to slip that particular bit of info Hanneman’s way. Nothing quite got the old man worked up more than a crest mystery.

Niamh’s response was quick. ”I dunno, I might. Although, I would like to find out if I do.”

Leonie spoke up after Lindhardt, and the topic changed once again. “Back in the forest, where were you before the professor found you? Where do you come from?”

Ah, the question on everyone’s minds. A shadow of something passed over the little girl’s eyes as she thought for a moment. “I was...I was in the nothing.” 

“Nothing? Whatever do you mean by that?” Flayn, ever curious to know the circumstances, asked. Seteth shifted his weight from one foot to the other at the question. Claude could tell he wanted to know as well. Either that, or he already did.

“The nothing. I call it that because that’s what it sounded like. Absolute silence. There was no light, no people, no anything.” Niamh answered, though for someone that had no idea what she was talking about it must have been as clear as mud.

Teach, sensing her students’ confusion, stepped in to clarify. “What she means to say is, she was in the void where I was sent by that spell. Think of a world of everlasting darkness; that’s where I found her.”

“Everlasting darkness? That sounds terrifying. How did you survive in a place like that, all on your own?” Ignatz’s eyes widened, full of wonder.

“I didn’t.”

Everyone blinked at that. Even Claude, having known most of this information already found that statement ominous, or at least odd.

“You didn’t survive? You mean it was like being dead right?” Leonie voiced everyone’s thoughts. 

Byleth put her hand on the girl’s shoulder and whispered something in a reassuring voice. Niamh nodded her head.

“I found her in that place and brought her out. I was the first person she had seen in a very long time. Unfortunately, being in that darkness for such a long time had effects on her psyche,” Their professor informed them.

“What sort of effects are we talking about here? Nothing like insanity, right?” Sylvain piped in.

“She doesn’t remember anything from before her imprisonment.”

Claude had heard everything from her before, but it sank in during that moment. Something terrible had happened, hadn’t it?

As to the nature of the terrible deed, the answer lay only in her missing memories. Claude lightly huffed. Mysteries could be frustrating sometimes when there were no obvious leads.

Seteth flinched.

“Oh! That’s terrible!” Flayn’s voice warbled.

The rest of the class soon followed. “Amnesia. How awful. I pray the goddess allows you to regain them in time.” Marianne said under everyone else’s voices.

Raphael stood up and gave Niamh a giant hug. “Don’t you worry about a thing! We’re gonna help you make lots of new memories so great, you won’t even need the old ones!”

“I can get behind that, big guy!” Sylvain added.

“At least until we graduate you mean. We won’t be around after that.” Lysithea cut in.

“Not even then Lysithea! The bonds we Golden Deer have made are too strong to stop even after graduation separates us! You’ve been quiet this whole time Claude, What do you say to that?” Hilda exclaimed.

Claude, now thrust into the spotlight, came up with something to say quickly. He thanked his years of experience making up excuses on the spot. “You’ve got that right, my good people. Once a deer, always a deer. We’ve been through so much together and we’ve come out of it stronger. We’ll be able to help no problem.”

Hilda was quick to back him up. “You heard Mr. Leader Man! We’re gonna help this little girl make some new memories!”

The class shared a cheer. Niamh, who was still in Raphael’s huge arms, cheered with them, eyes growing a little misty. 

* * *

Seteth reconvened with Rhea in the goddess tower later that day. There was much to discuss.

“Niamh, Have you found anything out regarding her, Seteth?” The archbishop spoke with a calm flowing voice.

“She was held prisoner for many years in the darkness of Zharas, Archbishop. It was the void within that supposedly wiped her memory.” Her attendant answered.

Hope dared to bloom in her heart.

* * *

  
  
  


_H̴̦̼́̿̒͐ͅư̵̢̡̳̝̤̘͎̱̫̗̳̤͖͐̎̆́̍͑̑̎̕n̸̼͑͌͂̾̎̈́̏̇̈́̕g̵̢̨̧̤͚̤̥̜͕̋̔̂͋̉̎̒̅̒̍̈́̚e̷͚̮̋r̴̢̺̙͔̹͈̫̗̟̤̩̪̹͗̋͋̏̒͂̈́̔̆̕͝͠_

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those poor kids, why do I like to torture them so?
> 
> Oh yeah. Because I'm a writer.
> 
> You might have already seen this coming, but things are going to get real in a few chapters, though maybe not for all the reasons you were expecting. Gotta let them have a bit of happiness while they can.
> 
> Also, I included a picture of Niamh. Thanks to Korva_Cthonic for helping me with the design!
> 
> Edit: Went back and gave all previous chapters names.   
> Edit 11/27/2020 : Rewrote some sections, changed the picture. I like this one a lot better.


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